Santa’s Helper (Sexy!) With Boots : 1 / 6

An Altered Fates Story
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

Jack Redhaven pulled into the parking lot of the only motel in Martaglio, California, and stepped out of his car into the July swelter. He checked in and carried his bags to his room. Thankfully, the air conditioning was already on, and doing a good job at fighting the heat. Jack was tired and stiff from the long drive. He would have loved to take a shower, change his clothes, and find someplace to eat, but there were still a couple of hours before sunset. Jack couldn’t let the sun go down if there was work he could be doing: Jack wanted to get a jump on his new project. He was anxious to see the lay of the land.

Jack is a liquidator. He goes into failed businesses, foreclosures, estates, and he sells everything. Everything that can be sold, Jack sells. Even things that can’t be sold, Jack sells. Things that no one else could even give away, Jack sells. And Jack loves his work. He loves digging into what any normal person would call a pile of trash and uncovering hidden treasures. When anyone else would say, “Haul it to a landfill,” Jack would say, “I know someone who is looking for that.”

It wasn’t about money. Sure, he loves the paycheck, and often the paycheck is very good, but what Jack really loves is making the connections: connecting the objects that one person neglected, abandoned, or left behind, to another person, who wants or needs exactly those items.

This time, the project was an old theater. Built in the last century, the Martaglio Theater was a stop on the burlesque circuit. When the days of burlesque ended, the theater hosted plays, concerts, and films. The building changed owners, management, and orientation at least a dozen times. As a business, it repeatedly died and came back to life. Unfortunately, it was time for the final curtain: there would be no more resurrections for the Martaglio Theater. The building was scheduled for demolition.

The problem with keeping the theater alive was that the town of Martaglio was too small and too far out of the way. There weren’t enough dollars in town or enough traffic from outside to keep the doors open. It had already passed a decade of disuse, and in that time it grew a carpet of dust, a canopy of cobwebs, and the stale air of neglect.

Jack was ready for all that: he was dressed to get dirty, in an old pair of jeans, an oversized t-shirt, and a pair of scruffy workboots. He took a set of keys from his briefcase and a manila envelope that contained the sale documents and power of attorney, in case he needed to demonstrate his authority.

This would be Jack’s first theater liquidation, and he was excited. He expected nostalgia, magic, fun -- remnants of the theater’s former glory -- and hopefully he’d find hidden secrets. Isn’t that what the theater is all about?

A good portion of that feeling -- the anticipatory magic -- dissipated when Jack caught his first sight of the building. The tall, dull red-and-white stone facade was not particularly beautiful. Jack knew the building was historic, but clearly it wasn’t historic for aesthetic reasons: it was only historic because it was old. It was built for size, not for beauty.

He parked in the lot behind the building and let himself in by the stage door. He quickly got the overview: 1000 seats, projection room, offices, concession stand… Jack was disenchanted. He’d been hoping for magic, but this theater was as prosaic as a old factory. He heaved a disappointed sigh, and ventured a quick look into the basement. Often, Jack would find one-of-a-kind treasures in attics and basements. Not this time! The theater’s basement turned out to be an enormous open space crammed with stage scenery that seemed more slapdash than artistic. There were ancient cans of paint, disorderly piles of building materials, various bits of machinery, and all sorts of… all sorts of… Well, there was only one word for it. For first time, even Jack had to admit: the place was full of junk.

He walked onto the stage and swept the beam from his powerful flashlight around the place. This was where all the beauty was: where the audience sat. He’d get a good look tomorrow, take some photos. This part, at least, he’d enjoy.

Behind the stage, Jack found a narrow corridor, carpeted with a thick layer of dust. The hallway was about ten feet wide, but a good share of the width was taken up by metal shelves. The shelves were filled with boxes, and the boxes, too, were covered with dust.

Luckily, all of the boxes were labelled, and -- as Jack soon confirmed -- the boxes were labelled correctly! When he pulled down a box marked SWORDS, it was full of cheap stage-prop swords. The ROMAN HELMETS box contained plastic Roman helmets. Everything was as advertised. He found smelly old wigs, judges’ robes that reeked with dried, ancient sweat, old shoes in every size, hats, fake handguns, plates and cutlery, baby toys… and then, on a shelf by itself, a box marked “zulo.” Unlike the writing on the other boxes, this word was all lowercase. Curious, he pulled the box down, carefully tipping it so the dust fell to the floor and didn’t spill all over him. The box was surprisingly light. In fact, the only thing inside was a necklace case. A beautiful, expensive-looking necklace case, covered in soft, light-brown leather. Now that’s got to be worth a couple of bucks, Jack told himself, regardless of whatever’s in it. He held it in his hand. It was nice find. At most it was worth $30, though he doubted he could get that much. Still, it was nice to find something real after looking through so many flimsy stage properties.

He popped open the case, and sighed again, disappointed. The lovely necklace case held nothing but a cheap, strange looking medallion. A medallion on a chain. Something a little girl might buy at a garage sale, Jack told himself in disgust. Everything in this place is just crap and fake. He decided to take the necklace case with him, and leave the cheap necklace behind. So he slid the cardboard box back on the shelf, lifted the medallion from the case, and tried to shove the medallion into the cardboard box. But he didn’t have enough hands to juggle the necklace box, his flashlight, and the medallion, and not wanting to set anything on the dusty shelves, he gave up and dropped the chain around his neck, laughing at himself as he did so.

The necklace case was too big to fit in his pocket, so he continued down the hallway with his light in one hand and the case in the other. I might as well head back to the motel now, he told himself, I’ve got the lay of the land and a good jump on tomorrow. At the same time, he was in no particular hurry, so he continued reading the labels on the boxes. Nothing piqued his curiosity until he saw a carton on a high shelf: a box marked SANTA’S HELPER (SEXY!) WITH BOOTS.

Feeling as guilty as if he’d discovered a pile of old Playboy magazines, Jack actually blushed and glanced up and down the hallway, as if to make sure no one could see. Then he looked around for a chair to help him reach, but there was no chair. There was a piece of metal, though, a broken piece from the shelving uprights. Jack moved a box on a lower shelf to make a clean space for his light and the necklace case. He stood on tip-toe and used the metal strut to try for a catch-hold on the box. But he couldn’t nab it. He jumped and tried to spear the box, but only succeeded in pushing it back, farther away from him. He tried to climb, but the shelves bent under his weight. Frustrated, angry, and feeling more than a little stupid, he was about to give up and go back to his hotel when he spotted a wire coat-hanger, with which -- after a good deal of work, cursing, and failed experiments -- he managed to hook the box’s front corner, and scarcely believing his luck, he was able to tug the box forward until it fell.

The box’s lid struck Jack on the top of his head, spilling dust and cobwebs down the back of his shirt. One of the boots hit him full in the face, and -- since he foolishly had his mouth wide open -- he got a good taste of the sole. He spat, and closed his mouth as a pair of red panties landed on his face. The last item to slide from the box was a brightly colored red, white, and green outfit, that cascaded down the front of Jack’s body.

It was one of those slutty Halloween costumes, the type that’s sexy this or sexy that. Sexy policewoman, sexy nurse, sexy maid, sexy devil. What they all had in common was a short skirt to show lots of leg, a low neckline to show lots of cleavage, and tight panties to show lots of... well, lots of those brightly-colored panties.

When the shiny fabric of the skimpy skirt and bodice touched the medallion, Jack felt an electric tingle through his body. It shot through every limb, including his penis, which jolted to attention for a startling instant. Then the tingle was gone. Jack attributed the sensation to his own embarrassment: he felt more than a little guilty, as though his interest in the sexy outfit was somehow wrong or dirty. He knew in his head that it wasn’t, but that didn't stop him from feeling like a teenage boy caught looking at porn.

Strangely, after a few moments, things began to change. As Jack gathered the costume back into its box, he noticed that the shelves were slowly and inexplicably sliding up the wall. Or at least that’s what he thought at first. Then, Jack’s shirt began to feel looser. His shoes, which fit him perfectly, now seemed like boats, they were so large. Jack looked down at himself, puzzled, wondering What on earth is happening to my clothes?

As the changes continued, Jack realized that it wasn’t his clothes that were changing -- it was his body. And of course the shelves weren’t moving up the wall: Jack was getting shorter. As he watched, the hair disappeared off the backs of his hands, and his arms, hands, and fingers grew more slender and delicate. While his shoulders grew narrower, his chest filled out, and his hips began to change from a rectangular block to a rounder, fuller shape. He had to undo his pants to accommodate his new hips. He felt his face and head: his head was smaller, and his hair was now long, dark, and soft. His face, too, was different: narrower. His nose and chin were quite a bit smaller.

Jack was confused and filled with fear. What was happening to him? Whatever had happened was still happening. He patted his new, ample breasts and hips, felt his narrow waist. He cried out loud, “What is happening to me? Is this real?” and when he did, his voice had changed. It was musical and high: a woman’s voice. What in blue hell was going on?

Jack remembered seeing a bathroom at the far end of the hall, so he grabbed his flashlight and headed in that direction. As soon as he took two steps, his shoes fell off. The laces were tied, he could see they were tied, but the shoes just fell right off! He slid his feet back in, but the damn things were too absurdly big. At the same time, his t-shirt had stretched to its limit. His breasts pulled the neck all out of shape. He’d undone his belt. His pants were wide open and unzipped, but his new hips easily held them up. His pant legs were way too long, though. Jack hauled up those too-long pant legs and clomped loudly and clumsily toward the bathroom in his oversized shoes. He was acutely aware of the sway of his heavy breasts and the tick-tock pendulum of his full, round derriere.

As he entered the bathroom, he hit the light switch without thinking. But there was light; there was no power. It was ages since anyone had paid the utility bills. He’d have to take care of that tomorrow. That and the water. His flashlight was bright and strong, but still, it was only a flashlight. With the limited light and the small medicine-cabinet mirror, he examined himself. But it wasn’t “himself” in that mirror -- it was a woman, a woman he’d never seen before. She had dark brown hair like Jack, and dark brown eyes like Jack. She could certainly pass for Jack’s sister if he had one, but whoever she was, she wasn’t Jack. He rubbed his free hand over his face, and the woman in the mirror did the same. His face was smooth: his razor stubble had disappeared. He stuck out his tongue and held up his middle finger, and the woman in the mirror made the same gestures. He let out a panicked wail, and so did she.

He turned the light to better see his chest, and found two full, round breasts hanging there. His narrow rib cage and smaller shoulders made the breasts seem even larger. He hefted them with his free hand, and the name Jane Mansfield came to mind. “Crap!” he breathed aloud. And yes, his hips were wider, and yes, his derriere was rounder and fuller, but no, there was nothing hanging between his legs. His cock was gone, and in its place he found a smooth mound with a frightening opening. He groaned in confused fear and pulled his hand away. Have I lost my mind? Could this be a weird sort of theater trick? A prank? Did I accidentally ingest a hallucinogenic drug? Am I really just lying on the floor in the hallway, imagining this? Or asleep in my hotel room, deep in a vivid nightmare? The movie Inception suddenly came to mind: a film that takes place in the world of dreams. Jack struggled to remember: what was it that the movie characters did when they needed to be sure they were awake, and not caught up in an intense subconscious world. In the film, waking up seemed to involve avalanches, floods, explosions, and hotels falling to pieces, but in spite of being in a theater, Jack didn’t have any of those items on hand.

“Oh, my God!” he cried aloud, over and over, and the frightened female voice he heard made him cry out again and again. At last, his back against the dirty wall, he slid down to the floor, but it was so disgustingly filthy that he leaped back to his feet in a single motion.

“Okay,” he said several times. “Okay, Okay,” and then “I need a plan, a plan. What I need right now is a plan.”

The first thing, of course, was clothing. He thought about the items in the boxes on the shelves, but his skin crawled at the thought of wearing any of them. Those clothes -- all of them -- were disgustingly dirty when they were stored in their boxes decades ago. The smell alone disqualified them from use. The only clean item he’d seen was the costume, the Santa’s Helper (Sexy!) costume, which was new, and appeared to have never been worn. He looked again in the mirror. Okay, the first thing, before clothes, was to get cleaned up a bit. He pulled off his t-shirt and used it to brush away the dust and cobwebs from his skin and hair. His hair? Her hair. Her hair. It was nice hair, by the way, falling just past her shoulders. She tried the faucet: there was a little water left in the pipes; with that she wiped the smudges from her face and arms.

The second thing, then, was clothes. She now realized (to her chagrin) that she might have gotten away with wearing Jack’s t-shirt as a daring, too-short dress, but now with its smudges and stains, it looked as though he'd cleaned the floor with it. She thought for a moment. None of Jack’s clothes would help, but she had noticed a second-hand store on the highway just before the town. Maybe it would be open in the morning. Maybe it was still open now.

But how did this happen? Her thoughts screamed at her, and she fought to calm herself. I’ll figure that part out tomorrow, she promised herself, and that promise helped to quiet the panicked woman she’d become.

Again: clothes. It became absurdly, unavoidably clear that at the moment, her only choice of outfit was the Santa’s Helper (Sexy!) costume, With Boots. Naturally, they weren’t real boots. They looked like boots, and they did cover her feet and legs up to her knees, but they were made from a flimsy plastic that threatened to come apart if she walked very far. Luckily, the costume itself was more robust and well-made, and that was a huge relief. Jack feared for a moment that the Santa’s Helper (Sexy!) costume was an outfit for strippers. The only thing worse than a Sexy Santa’s Helper costume would be a Tear-Away Santa’s Helper costume. Luckily, this one was meant to stay in one piece. She struggled for a minute with the lace-up ties on the back of the bodice, and finally gave up. After all, she only needed to get to the second-hand store, and this costume covered enough of her nakedness to let her do that. The panties, which she put on last, were surprisingly soft, and they fit her bottom perfectly. The feel of the smooth material gliding over her new and improved derriere gave her such an electric thrill that she slid them off and on again three times.

She stepped into the hallway and spotted a full-length mirror that she’d earlier passed without noticing, and gave herself a good looking-over. She didn’t look bad. Her hair was a little wild and needed brushing, but the boots were the only flaw, as far as clothes went. She remembered a box of women’s boots she’d seen on the metal shelves, and was able to swap out the flimsy costume boots for a pair of worn but serviceable black ankle boots.

She gave herself one last look in the mirror. Here it is the middle of summer, and I’m dressed for Christmas, she observed ruefully. Oh well. At the second-hand shop I don’t need to explain myself. I just need to buy some clothes.

Armed with Jack’s keys, wallet, and papers, she headed for the stage door exit. On the way down the hall she grabbed a cloth tote bag and stuffed her belongings into it.

When she opened the door, she saw that the world had changed while she was in the basement: the sun had set, and the street lights were coming up. Martaglio seemed a different town in the fading light of evening. The temperature had dropped a little; not a lot, but enough to feel the difference.

Taking her first few steps outside proved to be quite an experience. She’d already felt the sway of her breasts and hips, but now she was actually walking, not just taking steps. The strange tilt that the boots’ heels gave to her body, threw her balance off a bit, so she found herself walking more carefully and slowly. She took shorter steps. The most surprising difference was the air: there came a slight breeze, and every inch of her naked legs could feel it. A slightly stronger breeze followed, that softly rippled her skirt and penetrated the thin red panties underneath. I’m overexposed, she thought, I’m practically naked here. My butt’s in plain view, and my breasts are served up on a platter for everyone to see.

She stepped off the curb and discovered that the parking lot was more of an incline than she remembered. It required a little concentration to walk downhill in heels, but it was fine as long as she was careful. Then came the second great shock of the day: Where is my car? She fearfully scanned the parking lot. She was sure this was the same parking lot. This was exactly where she’d parked her car a few hours ago. When she entered, her car was the only one in the lot. Now the lot was completely empty.

Oh, no. There was a sign on a post. A sign Jack missed seeing when he parked earlier. It wasn’t entirely his fault: if you were standing in the parking lot, a tree branch hid the sign from view. Now, coming from the theater, Jack saw it plainly, and what it said was this: NO PARKING BETWEEN DUSK AND DAWN. And in smaller letters below: VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED AT OWNER’S EXPENSE.

Okay, time for a new plan. The first and most important thing was still clothes. To get clothes, she needed to get to the second-hand store. But would it be open at this hour? She consulted her phone, found the store, checked its hours, and hallelujah, it was still open. In fact, it was open late: Mondays and Thursdays, open until ten, and today was Monday. But how to get there? The obvious answer was: a cab. Or an Uber. Or a Lyft.

She looked again at her phone, when suddenly a car pulled into the parking lot: it was, of all things, a yellow taxi cab, and it was heading directly towards her! This is like a demented fairy tale, she told herself. It became even more like a demented fairy tale when the rear door opened, and a woman got out. She was curvy. She had shiny blonde hair. But the truly remarkable thing was that she, too, was dressed like Santa’s Helper (Sexy!), but all in red, with white fur trim along the neckline and the skirt’s hem. Her costume was not as elaborate as Jack’s, but it certainly was sexy. The woman’s legs and shoulders were bare, and her outfit showed a very generous amount of cleavage. The skirt was extremely short, like Jack’s -- in fact, the woman’s shiny white panties were plainly visible as she stepped from the cab. Like Jack, she wore black ankle boots on her feet.

Jack could hardly speak. Was this another man who’d been transformed? Where had she come from? Why was she here? What were the odds that two women would end up in this parking lot on a hot summer evening dressed as Santa’s Sexy Helpers? Jack’s mouth worked silently as the questions struggled to emerge. The woman smiled at Jack. As she shut the cab’s door, she called out, “Oh, thank God! I thought I’d be the only one here!”

“Uh--” Jack croaked, bewildered. The situation was so totally confusing that he didn’t know how to grapple with it, let alone speak.

While Jack struggled to find his words, the cab turned and headed for the exit.

“No!” Jack cried, helplessly.

The other woman blinked, puzzled and confused.

Santa’s Helper (Sexy!) With Boots : 2 / 6

An Altered Fates Story
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

The woman in the red Santa’s Helper outfit saw Jack’s distress and asked, “Did you want that cab, honey? Aren’t you staying?”

Jack, more confused than ever, glanced from the woman to the taxi and back again. She gestured mutely at the cab, which was about to leave the parking lot. Her mind was so overcome with questions, she was utterly unable to speak.

“Don’t worry, I got this,” the woman assured her, and putting two fingers in her mouth, let out an ear-splitting THWEE-aw-WHEET! THWEE-aw-WHEET! At the piercing sound of her whistle, the taxi’s brake lights flashed, and the driver’s head jerked back. He regarded the two women for a moment, then turned away. The brake lights went dark. The driver touched the gas. The car turned down the street and disappeared from sight.

“The bastard!” the woman in red shouted. “What a bastard! Did you see him? He heard me! You saw that, didn’t you? He stopped, he looked at us, and then he just up and left! What a god-damned bastard!” She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her bag and offered one to Jack -- who declined. She lit, took a deep draw, and chuckled. As the smoke trailed from her mouth, she said, “Then again, he might of taken off ‘cause I stiffed him on the tip, heheheh. But you know what I say? I say, if you want ten dollars, you ask for ten dollars. You know what I mean? No pussy-footing around. Just say what you mean.”

She regarded Jack in silence, looking her over from top to toe. “Well, aren’t you a fine young thing! Hot off the presses, you are! Just look at you! Skin like fresh cream, and not a wrinkle on ya. And take a look at that outfit! Must have set you back a fair bit. It’s nice material.”

“Thanks,” Jack replied, nervously.

She blew the rest of the smoke from her lungs and asked, “Why did you want that cab, hon? You’re not getting cold feet are you?”

Jack felt immensely stupid and completely unprepared. Cold feet? Cold feet about what? “I don’t know what’s going on,” she confessed, and trembled as she spoke, as if she was cold. “I have no idea why we’re here -- why I’m here.” Immediately, even as the words came out of her mouth, Jack regretted saying them. But to her surprise, the woman in red had a strong positive reaction.

“Ohh!” she exclaimed, with a delighted smile. “A newbie! That’s why I haven’t seen you. That’s why you’re so fresh and clean. This is your first time, isn’t it? Your very first time?”

Still trembling, the woman’s positive response made Jack feel safe admitting it: “Yes.”

“Ever?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my. Well, I’d like to say it’s a wild ride, but unfortunately it’s not. You’ll see. But don’t you worry, hon! Everything’s going to be fine, just fine.” She patted Jack’s arm. “I’ll take you under my wing. I’ll keep my eye on you, make sure you’re okay. Don’t you worry one bit, do you hear me?”

“Um… okay. Thanks,” Jack replied. Then, confiding a bit more, he said, “I wanted that cab because I need to get some clothes.”

“Clothes?” the woman asked, puzzled. Then she glanced at Jack’s tote bag, which was pretty thin compared to her own bag. “Oh, I get it! You don’t have any clothes for after! Can’t you call your boyfriend? Tell him to bring you some clothes when he comes to pick you up?”

Jack blushed a bright red. “I don’t have a boyfriend. And what do you mean after? After what?”

The woman in red stopped, pulled back, and gave Jack a searching look. “What do you mean, what do I mean? Aren’t you here for the Hot Summer Christmas? You’ve got to be kidding me! Why else would ANYBODY be standing here, in this parking lot, right now, dressed the way we're dressed? And, by the way, if you don’t have a boyfriend, how did you get here? I’m guessing you didn’t come in a cab.”

“I drove,” Jack told her. “I drove here. On the way in, I saw this second-hand shop that’s sort of on the edge of town, and that’s why I wanted the cab--”

“Why didn’t you just drive there?”

“Because my car got towed, that’s why.”

“That’ll do it,” the woman commented. She clearly thought there was something fishy in Jack’s story; something that didn’t quite add up. She didn’t say so, but it showed on her face. Then another thing occurred to her, so the woman asked, “Wait a minute. Are you talking about the second-hand store at the end of the strip mall? The one that’s east of here, right after you get off Route 2?”

“Yes, that’s the one!”

The woman in red nodded, and drew on her cigarette. Just as she was about to speak, an old Cadillac pulled into the parking lot, and three more women got out, all of them dressed in sexy Santa’s Helper outfits. They waved a desultory hello, then gathered in a little pack by themselves to smoke and talk several yards away from Jack and the woman in red. “Bitches,” the woman in red commented, under her breath. Jack didn’t want to be judgmental, but he had more than a strong suspicion that all four of these women were prostitutes, and that the Hot Summer Christmas was some kind of prostitutional, prostitutionary, prostitutory gathering.

What kind of crazy nightmare is this? Jack asked himself. How and why and by whom would I be changed into a woman and shanghaied into a lurid sex party? He resolved then and there that — no matter what he had to do to get to the heart of this mystery he’d fallen into — he was not going to be a prostitute, not for an evening or an hour or even one minute. Further, there'd be no sex with anyone! Not for anything on earth!

But the woman in red was talking again.

“Well, that’s where we’re going,” she said. “The Hot Summer Christmas is taking place in that very same mall. It’s kind of an old mall, but whatever. It’s seen better days, but haven’t we all. Anyway, one of the big clothes stores has a huge back room -- a kind of warehouse, almost. The big store’s gone, so this great big back room is empty all the time. The maintenance guy rents it out for cash on the QT. I’ve done a couple events there -- so have the other girls. It’s not too bad.”

“How are you getting there?” Jack asked.

“A little bus will come and pick us up,” the woman answered. “Don’t you know that? How could you not know that? I mean, why are you even here if you don’t know that?”

Jack ignored the question. “Do you think I get off the bus at the second-hand store?”

The woman studied Jack’s face while she considered the question. After another pull on her cigarette, she answered, breathing smoke as she spoke. “Sure. Why not? If that’s what you want to do. But listen, don’t ask the driver. He’s kind of cranky, and he’s only coming to take us to the party. So don’t go asking special favors. You don’t want people asking questions, making a fuss. Here's what you do: wait until we all get off. Then you tiptoe off and go your merry way. You’ll see the store on the way in, so there’s no way for you to get lost.” She shrugged. “If that’s what you really want to do, go ahead and do it. There’s no harm done to anyone. You’ll just miss out on some easy money and free booze.”

“Okay,” Jack agreed, feeling much better. “Then that’s what I’ll do.”

“What’s your name? Mine’s Lucy.”

Jack knew the question would come sooner or later, so she went with the most obvious answer. “My name’s Jackie,” she said.

As the two shook hands, they heard a loud rumble and the sound of a clutch grinding hard against the gears. The noise came from a little school bus that had just pulled into view. It was yellow, and incongruously had the words THIRD BAPIST CHURCH misspelled in big black letters on the side. There were six women already aboard, each of them wearing a bright Santa’s Helper outfit. “Here we go,” Lucy said, stubbing out her cigarette and taking Jackie’s arm. “We gotta grab the seats in the way, way back, come on!” Clip-clopping in a hurry on her high heels, she climbed onto the bus, pulling Jackie behind her. She bustled her way to the back, where she and Jackie took the last two seats. With a loud squeak, clank, and a thud, the driver pulled the door closed, and the bus roared out of the parking lot to the sound of the clutch once again biting loudly into the gears.

“You sure you don’t want to come to the party?” Lucy asked. “It’s good money.”

“What will it be like?”

“A bunch of old fat guys and a couple of skinny ones who like to dress up like Santa Claus and get laid.” As she spoke, Lucy made an odd gesture: she interlaced the fingers of both hands and wiggled one of her pinky fingers. “I won’t kid you: it isn’t pretty. But the drinks are free, the food is edible, and you don’t have to work very hard. For the first hour or so, all you have to do is smile and pretend. After that, once the Santas are bombed, you don’t even have to do that. All you have to do is be there.”

“No, thanks,” Jackie replied with a shiver. “I just want to get some regular clothes and figure things out from there.”

“Figure things out?” Lucy rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Look -- I don’t know what ‘figuring out’ you need to do, but I can tell my hubby Wes to bring some clothes for you when he comes to pick me up. Hell, we can even give you a ride, wherever you need to go.”

Then, after a thoughtful pause, Lucy added, "And you know what? If you stick with me, I can ask my brother Grady to help you get your car back. He just got out of jail two weeks ago, so he knows the ins and outs of the system better than anybody. Plus," she added with a slow wink, "he's very easy on the eyes."

Jackie smiled but didn’t answer. Lucy shrugged and said, “Anyway, the offer’s there.” Then the two fell into silence.

Jackie gazed out the window. As she sat there, on the noisy little bus, Jackie began to feel the weight of what had happened to her. Here she was, going God knows where, to do God knows what with God knows who... half-naked in a silly Christmas outfit in the middle of summer. She was alone. She was a girl, but she wasn't a girl this morning. She was lost -- not in a geographical sense, but yes, even though she knew exactly where she was, she was lost: She didn’t know how she’d gotten into this situation and had no idea how she was getting out. Okay, she had time to get to the second-hand store and buy some decent clothes. At least she wouldn’t look like a two-dollar whore. But then what?

Who can I call? she asked herself. How can I explain this to anyone? Who am I now, anyway? Did I take over someone else’s life? Am I a person with a name and a family? Or am I someone brand-spanking new, created out of the blue? Is some woman out there now, walking around as Jack Redhaven? Did I switch bodies with some woman somewhere, or am I still me? Am I the only one in this predicament?

Jackie lifted her head and looked around the bus. She looked at the women, all of whom seemed a good twenty years older than her, and wondered to her horror whether this was where life was taking her. How could she make it stop? How could she get her real life back?

Somehow she felt certain that she was the only woman on the bus who’d been born a man.

An existential, rock-shattering fear welled up inside of her. She looked into the darkness outside the window, and felt the immensity of the universe all around her, on every side. She had never felt so alone. She had never been so alone. Nothingness in every direction, on every side, ahead and behind, above and below. Jackie closed her eyes and felt herself falling. Not falling physically -- but falling inside herself, dropping into a deep, endless emotional sinkhole: a hole with no bottom. The sky above her was black. The ground below her was gone. Jackie had never been so frightened; she never felt such desperation and terror in her life.

After what seemed like an eternity, Jackie felt Lucy’s hand on her arm. “Are you okay, honey? You’ve gone all white, and you’re shaking like a leaf. You’ve got a bad case of the jitters!”

“Oh,” Jackie gasped, almost unable to speak. She looked at her hands and saw the trembling in her arms and legs. Her throat was dry. It was hard to swallow. She felt that she’d just come back from far, far away, from the deepest boundaries of the darkness of outer space, and the cold emptiness was still upon her. She couldn’t stop shaking. “Sorry,” she muttered.

“Oh, hon! You don’t have to be sorry about nothing! You’ve got your nerves up, that’s all.” Lucy cast a stealthy glance at the other women, and in a low voice said, “I’ve got something to help with that, but it’s just between you and me. I don’t have enough to share with everybody -- not that I want to share, but I don’t have much, so not a word, not a sound.” With another quick glance at the women -- to make sure they weren’t watching -- Lucy held out her hand, and there, on her open palm, were two small white pills. They were triangular, and embossed with an X. “One for you, and one for me,” Lucy said, and added with a wink, “They're good for what ail’s ya. And if nothing ail’s ya, they're good for that, too.” Jackie and Lucy each took a pill and popped them in their mouths. Lucy cracked open a bottle of water and gave the first sip to Jackie, who washed the pill down. Lucy did the same.

After another glance forward, Lucy fished in her bag again. “Maybe we ought to pop another, just to be sure,” she told Jackie, and held out two more pills. They each took one.

Jackie took a deep breath and straightened up a little. She tooked at her hands. The trembling had stopped. Lucy observed Jackie’s actions and smiled. “They don’t work that fast, little girl. I think they’ll kick in right when we hit the mall: that’s what I call perfect timing.”

Jackie nodded. Despite what Lucy had just said, she somehow felt better already. “So what was that pill?” she asked. “Is it Xanax?”

Lucy burst into laughter. “Oh, lord, aren’t you the funny one! Xanax!” and she kept on laughing until she was overcome with coughing. She looked at Jackie’s face and stopped, mid-cough. “Bless your heart, little girl! You’re not joking, are you!” she observed. “I thought you were pulling my leg! Xanax! Heh.” Jackie shook her head. “It’s X, baby. Ecstasy.” Lucy sighed. “Now, please don’t tell me you’ve never taken E before?”

Jackie shook her head, alarmed. “What will it do to me?” she asked.

“Hmm,” Lucy mused. “Looks like this is a day of firsts for you. Well, what’ll it do? What’ll it do? It will take those nerves away for one thing. And it will, uh, it will tune up everything: it’s like… well you know HD television? Right now you and me, it’s like we’re watching regular, old-fashioned TV… everything around us in black-and-white. When the pills kick in, everything will be HD: colors, sounds… Everything. Inside and out. Everything will be great. You’ll love everything, and everything will love you. You’ll be warm and wonderful and happy. You’ll see.”

Lucy saw the look of alarm on Jackie’s face, but she clearly wasn’t concerned. She sat back in her seat and muttered, “God, I need a cigarette.” She patted Jackie’s arm mechanically. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. Just remember to stay hydrated. I’ll keep my eye on you. Whenever I give you water, you drink.”

The rest of the trip was quiet. No one on the bus spoke. It was an odd, transitional moment, where everyone looked silently ahead, reading themselves for what was to come.

In Jackie’s case, there were two things that occupied her mind: In the first place, she was watching herself anxiously, on edge, waiting for the first effects of the drug to appear. She had no idea what to expect, really -- she knew nothing about Ecstacy, apart from the name -- so she was on the lookout for any new sensations, or new feelings, or anything out of the ordinary at all -- not that there was any ordinary left at the moment. She wondered whether the world would actually look different, or smell different, or sound different. Jackie was already in an unfamiliar body, so her baseline for what felt normal or different was already out of whack. Then, too, Lucy may have been exaggerating about the effects of the drug.

The other thing that Jackie was watching for was outside the bus: she was scanning for something familiar on the street, some signpost or landmark; something, anything, that might tell her she was near the second-hand shop.

And so she sat, literally on the edge of her seat, keeping an inward watch for any twitches or strange ideas, and an outward watch for the second-hand store.

Every few minutes Lucy muttered, “Need a cigarette. Bad. Kill for a cigarette. Really.”

The monotony was suddenly broken when Jackie spotted the second-hand store, the same one she’d seen earlier: the one she meant to go to, before she ran into Lucy! It was farther out than she remembered, but this was definitely it! She was finally where she hoped to be right now. For the first time since she’d been transformed, she felt a glimmer of hope. The lights in the store were on, the OPEN sign was hanging in the window -- which meant that she still had time. She still had hope of getting into normal female clothes and out of this ridiculous costume. If only she could get off the bus--

Jackie wanted to call out to the driver, but she remembered Lucy’s advice about simply slipping away. It made sense: no one would have understood why she’d gotten all dolled up just to take a bus ride.

The bus slowed, then turned into the parking lot, right in front of the store. It kept going, following the store fronts along the mall. Jackie looked back at the second-hand shop. It would be a bit of a walk, but she could make it. As long as the driver stopped soon--

Instead, the driver turned left after the last store, and then turned left again, so he could follow the backs of the stores. He headed in the direction of the second-hand shop once again, this time from the back. At last, somewhere near the middle of the mall, he pulled the bus into a loading dock. It was not very promising: the dock was dirty, lit by a few weak lights. It was squalid. There was an air of dirt, menace, and danger ,even though no one was around. The driver turned off the engine, which shuddered, sputtered, and lurched violently five times before it finally fell silent. Then the driver pulled on a lever, and with a clank and a thump the door opened.

“Last stop, ladies!” the driver called. “Ho, ho, ho!”

The women sighed wearily as they got to their feet. They stretched and groaned and clomped their high-heeled way off the bus, not in any hurry at all.

Lucy popped a cigarette in her mouth in preparation, and her hand twitched on the lighter as she walked to the front. Jackie followed, quietly waiting her chance to break off and run to the second-hand store before it closed.

A door opened at the dock entrance and a short, muscular man emerged. “Evening, ladies!” he called. “Welcome all! Come right this way! Ho, ho, ho! For those of you who don't know, or just plain forgot, my name is Dave, and I'm in charge this evening.”

The women moved forward as a group. Jackie hung back. Lucy lit her cigarette and turned around to look at Jackie, who was standing still, gazing down the row of rear walls of stores. “What’s up, hon? It’s too late to turn back. We’re here.”

“The clothes store…” Jackie replied, gesturing. “The second-hand store. I told you: I want to get there before it closes.”

Lucy stared for a moment, open mouthed, calculating. Then she asked, as if she’d forgotten, “The second-hand store at the end of this mall?”

“Yes,” Jackie replied with a nod. “I told you.” How many times had she said it?

“It’ll be safer and easier to get there from inside the mall,” Lucy told her. “Come on. Come inside. You don’t want to be walking all that way in the dark, alone. Especially dressed like that.”

“Can I do that?” Jackie asked. “Can I get there from inside?”

“Of course you can, darling,” Lucy lied. “I just said so, didn’t I? Come on, now. We have to get inside.”

Jackie followed Lucy and the others into the building, and her heart sank. The general theme and decor of the loading dock continued inside: the interior was just as squalid as the exterior. The women found themselves in a huge room with an immensely high ceiling. The walls were far off and dingy. Everything was dingy, dirty, funky, unclean, unhygienic. There were half-hearted Christmas decorations fastened by brown packing tape to metal bookshelves placed here and there, and a makeshift bar on a long white plastic folding table covered with red stiff paper. There were plastic cups, big bottles of off-brand alcohol, and a cooler full of ice and cheap beer. There were open bags of chips and other snack foods on the table as well. Folding tables and chairs were arranged carelessly in the center.

Apart from that, the only other furnishings were beds. Unmade beds, beds without sheets, mattresses lying directly on the floor, all of them divided by drop cloths suspended between metal supports.

“Get ready, ladies!” the Dave called out. “You can leave your valuables in the lockers over there. If you don’t have a lock, I’ve got one for you. Make sure you remember your combinations, because we’ll charge you if we need to cut them open!”

The women shuffled over to the lockers. Lucy whispered to Jack, “Listen, in a minute I’ll show you how to get to your store. In the meantime, you can lock your stuff in here with mine just to keep it safe. Okay, hon?” She snatched Jackie’s tote bag from her hands and locked it away.

“No--” Jackie began to protest, but she was cut off by Dave.

“All right, ladies, are you ready? We’re going to let the Santas loose now. Big smiles! Everybody’s sexy and ready and hot and horny! Here we go!”

At that, a thin fellow with a droopy moustache opened a door in the far wall, and about two dozen men emerged, each dressed more or less as Santa Claus. They looked more creepy than jolly; their Santa suits were cheap, cheesy, and half-hearted at best. Half wore the cheapest of white wigs and fake beards -- so fake, they wouldn’t fool even the most gullible child.

At the sight of the Santas, Jackie had no doubt about what was happening here tonight: the women were prostitutes, hired as a body to service these disreputable Santas.

Jackie’s resolve solidified. She told herself, Get out of here NOW. It’s now or never. Get your stuff back from Lucy and high-tail it to the second-hand store! She turned to Lucy, and was startled to see that, from one moment to the next, Lucy had changed. Instead of the shambling, older-looking, overweight hustle, Lucy was beaming, glowing. In fact, she was beautiful. Her face, her smile were radiant, otherworldly. In a dreamy voice she cooed, “Do you feel it, hon? Has it hit you yet?”

The sight of Lucy in this state made Jackie incredibly angry. She balled up her fists and tightened her jaw. She wanted to punch the woman who’d led her on, who’d thrown roadblocks in front of her. Jackie needed her belongings back, and had no time or inclination for dealing with Lucy on drugs. But then again, a wild thought hit her: This is the perfect time to ask the question! and so she did: Grabbing Lucy’s arm, she said, “Lucy? Lucy? Have you ever been a man?”

Lucy laughed lightly. “A man? No, hon. Me? A man? Never! Have you?”

“Yes,” Jackie replied, gritting her teeth. “Just a couple hours ago.”

“Wow,” Lucy sighed, amazed, without comprehending. She turned to Jackie and bestowed a beatific smile. “That’s unbelievable! But listen, girl, don’t tell the Santas! It will kill whatever tiny erection they’ve managed to work up.”

Jackie suddenly understood the pinky-wagging gesture Lucy had made on the bus earlier. “Oh, shit,” she sighed.

“Yeah, baby,” Lucy agreed, breathlessly.

At that moment, the drug exploded in Jackie’s brain. Lucy, the room, everything in it -- and even Jackie herself --- transformed and seemed to burst into living, holy flame.

Santa’s Helper (Sexy!) With Boots : 3 / 6

An Altered Fates Story
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

For the rest of Jackie’s life, she remembered the events of that night with revulsion, horror, and resentment. Each time it came back to mind, it was like reliving a nightmare, except that this nightmare actually happened. At the time, however, as it was happening, she saw and experienced all of it through the filter of the drug that she’d taken. While her brain chemistry was altered, the entire episode seemed a lovely, glowing, happy festival of life.

It could go without saying, but she never took drugs again, ever.

Some of her memories of that night are vivid and powerful, with strong tactile and olfactory elements. Others are fuzzy and indistinct. The near-forgotten, blurry memories are both a blessing and a curse: A blessing because the less she recalls, the less there is to make her cringe; a curse because *some* activity must have filled those gray, forgotten intervals. The parts that she could remember were bad enough; were the parts that she couldn’t remember far worse? There was no way of knowing.

What she did remember was hands and penises: lots of them, coming from every direction, touching her, poking her, everywhere. In her mind’s eye, like a high-definition video, she could see and feel two men undressing her while several other men watched. She remembered the electric, silky flow of her costume loosening and sliding off her body. She especially remembered the sensation of her soft, shiny panties slipping oh-so-slowly over her lovely round butt and down her smooth, shapely legs.

After that came the groping, desperate hands, digging into her breasts and ass and pussy -- very roughly at first, until Dave’s voice cut through the frenzy: “Be gentle, boys! Be gentle! She’s soft and delicate, remember! And there’s plenty for everyone! She bruises easily, so don’t damage the merchandise, or I’ll toss you out on your butt with NO REFUND!” The admonition helped: the groping slowed and the pain diminished. It was still equally invasive, but less hurried and less brutal.

Then, penises: it seemed that everyone wanted to put his penis on her face, in her face, over her face. In her mind’s eye she could still see them, like a mass of worms and sausages, wriggling and blocking her view. How so many dicks could fit so closely together was a mystery she never unravelled.

There was only one thing that managed to irritate her at the time, that succeeded in thwarting her high, happy, drug-induced state: One man kept rubbing his cock against her ear. It must have been a weird fetish all his own, and it bugged the hell out of her. She kept pushing him off, but he didn’t stop until she swatted his cock away with a swift, strong backhand.

One of her more tactile memories -- a memory she could still smell was the pre-cum on her face. She could still sense the slimy, slick, lotion-like wetness, and the crusty salt when it dried on her cheeks, nose, and forehead.

Of course there was no end to the sucking. A steady stream of men came to pop their cock between her lips. She’d suck and lick until they’d cum, go limp, or simply leave. There was plenty of sperm as well. She didn’t exactly remember the various tangs afterward, but at the time she remember thinking how differently they all tasted. Only one was truly bad, but even that flavor sent her on a string of hallucinated memories through the foods and condiments that could give his sperm that brackish tinge.

People sucked on her as well, and licked and kissed her various parts. When she’d suddenly become aware of someone sucking on her breasts, she’d rest a gentle hand upon their head. Truly, it was the only part that she was able to enjoy. It was meditative and peaceful; it was calm, without frenzy and without words; it was as close to wholesome as anything could be that night. If she could have spent the entire night that way, lying naked on a large, soft cushion while someone’s mouth worshipfully dwelled on her massive breasts, she would have been perfectly happy.

A number of times another woman came to lick the sperm off her chest for an audience of one or two men. Each time, one of the onlooking men would catch her eye and tell her in a boastful tone, “I paid extra for this,” as if it were a significant personal achievement. In Jackie’s altered state, that strange phrase seemed like a deep philosophical puzzle, a koan whose meaning hung just out of her reach: tantalizingly close, but always eluding her grasp.

There was one quiet interval in which she seemed to wake up. She lay au naturel, draped over a disordered couch. At first she thought she was utterly alone, but an unusual feeling made her gaze down the length of her unclothed body, and there, at the end of her sylphlike legs, crouched a fully clothed man, sucking on her toes. When he realized she was watching him, he looked at her with big eyes for a moment, and stopped long enough to tell her, “I paid extra for this,” as though that explained everything. Then he picked up her other foot and ran his tongue over and between all of her toes, before he began sucking on each one individually.

As far as actual sex was concerned, it seemed that most of the men preferred taking her from behind. She remembered lying on her stomach for what seemed like (and may well have been) hours, bent over a soft piece of furniture, while various Santas took turns laboring behind her, pushing their hips into her soft derriere, pumping and grunting and gasping, and in the end, growling and shouting and shaking.

Also, at intervals, she’d feel someone’s tongue at work in the area of her butt. She couldn’t see who it was, and she couldn’t help but picture a dog down there, going at her, licking with a long, strong tongue.

Quite often she’d find a cock in her hand; a random man would walk up and park his member in her fingers, even if she was distracted, unaware, or busy being used by someone else.

She counted herself lucky to not have had any anal penetrations that night, but there was one vivid memory that she couldn’t shake. It was the one that disturbed her most of all. She couldn’t recall what came before or after, but she very vividly saw the thing itself in her mind's eye, as though it only happened a moment ago. She was on her knees in what seemed like a gymnasium shower, kneeling over a drain. Five men stood around her in a semicircle. They all had their cocks out, and they were all squeezing their penises with some urgency. They fidgeted and danced, all of them about to burst with the need to pee. And then, one of them called, “Okay, sweetie, head up! Straighten up!” as he gently took hold of her hair and used it to guide her up and to tilt her head back. Then, “One, two, three!” and all five began urinating at her, on her, in her hair, on her face, all down her body. She kept her eyes and mouth shut as well as she could, but unfortunately she gasped and tried to protest, and in that moment three streams of hot liquid hit her tongue and filled her mouth. Without meaning to, she swallowed, and instinctively jerked her head down. Seeing that, one of the men held her nose, to keep her face up and her mouth open. They all seemed to have extra-large tanks, filled to the very brim.

“Worth every penny!” one of the men shouted when they were done, and the others agreed. After they zipped up, they left her there alone, on the floor. She got up and rinsed off in one of the showers. There was no soap or shampoo, so she let herself be soaked and cleaned as well as plain water was able to do. She rinsed her mouth, swilling and spitting, until at long last she turned the shower off.

Then a second group of men came in, clutching their groins and dancing with need, and it all played out a second time, in much the same way.

That was her last memory of the night.

The next thing she knew it was morning. Daylight filled the enormous room, and Jackie found herself lying, uncovered, on a huge piece of sailcloth. It was incredibly white and incredibly clean. Jackie herself was no less clean. She ran her eyes and hands over her magnificent anatomy: there were no bodily fluids to be seen or felt or smelled. She touched her back and her derriere, and they, too, were as clean as could be. She sniffed her arms and hands; she took handfuls of her hair and smelled deeply. Every part of her was factory-fresh, soft and clean, shiny and manageable.

Behind her, Dave and Lucy were talking. She could hear Dave easily enough. His voice came through loud and clear. Lucy, on the other hand, was muttering, speaking low. When she spoke, Jackie could recognize Lucy’s voice, but wasn’t able to make out the sounds or the sense of it. Dave was telling her, “Lucy, listen to me: don’t fuck with that girl. She’s new, she’s good, and I don’t want you ripping her off and scaring her away.” Lucy protested, but he cut her off. “Don’t steal her money. Don’t tell her she owes you anything. Next time I see her, I’ll ask her if you took anything off her, and if you did, you’ll pay her back double. Do you understand? DOUBLE.” Lucy murmured something that Jackie couldn’t quite hear or make out. She went on for a long while, until Dave cut her off with a scoff. “A finder’s fee? You want a finder’s fee?” Lucy spoke again, and Dave answered, “Lucy-- Lucy, listen: I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Next time, you bring her. Next time, if she comes, AND if she tells me you didn’t take any of her money or cheat her or anything, THEN I’ll give you a fucking finder’s fee. You can’t get a fairer deal than that, and even if you can, that’s the only deal you’re going to get from me. Understand? Do you understand?”

Lucy grunted her assent, then came forward in front of Jackie. She smiled as though Jackie was her favorite person in the whole wide world. “Well, look who’s awake! How’re you doing, sleeping beauty?” Dave came and joined her. He smiled down at her, clearly enjoying the view of her unclothed body. “You know what the French would say, Jackie? They’d say that you’re in dish-a-billy. Have you ever heard that word? Dish-a-billy. That’s you to a T!”

Jackie still had enough of the drug in her system to not notice, or at least to not mind that Dave so openly consumed her with his eyes. Some part of her mind worked out the word dishabille from Dave’s encomium. She stretched and yawned. “How did I get so clean?” she asked.

Dave snorted with laughter. “One of the Santa’s, one of those geezers, paid extra to bathe you while you slept.” Jackie blinked. “In fact, there was a lot of paying extras with you last night, so even after my cut, you have a tidy little haul here.” He tossed an envelope full of cash to Jackie. It made a full, satisfying slap! as it landed, signifying all the dollars inside. “Now, ALL OF THAT MONEY is yours. You understand? You don’t owe anybody anything out of that cash there. Understand? I wrote the total right here.” Lucy’s mouth twisted to the side, but she said nothing.

“Yeah, I understand,” Jackie replied. “Thanks.”

“Come back anytime,” Dave told her, and he handed her two bags: One was a little shopping bag that held her boots and her Santa’s Helper costume (including the panties). The other was the tote bag that Lucy had taken from her the night before. “Better check that bag, make sure nothing went missing,” Dave observed with a wink and a jerk of his head in Lucy’s direction.

Lucy’s husband, Wes, arrived soon after. He didn’t bring any extra clothes for Jackie, but Dave found her a pair of pink flip-flops and a man’s extra-large t-shirt. It was way too big for her, but as it draped down as far as her mid-thigh, it covered all the necessary bits. The shirt was turquoise. In white letters it said I SURVIVED SHARKNADO!, and was illustrated by a white drawing of a tornado with four sharks being thrown from it.

Jackie was still in a passive, open state from the drug, so she followed Lucy and Wes as if she was their little pet lamb. They brought her to their double-wide manufactured home in the hills above town. Except for being outdoors, it was not much better than the room where they’d spent the night. The windowless body of a car was rusting away in the front yard. There was a pile of half-rotten wooden pallets, along with broken boxes, bags of trash, and a big old console TV whose finish was eaten away by time, sun, and rain. The house needed paint and repairs, but, at the sight of it, Lucy crowed, “Here it is! Welcome to our home, in all its glory!”

“Yep,” Wes agreed, “Home, sweet home. Love it or leave it be.”

“Like it or lump it,” Lucy said.

“Use it or lose it,” Wes contributed. Lucy didn’t have anything more to add, so Wes opened a little refrigerator that stood just outside the front door, and took out two beers. He popped the tops off with his thumbs, gave one to Lucy and offered the other to Jackie. When she shook her head, he shrugged and said, “More for me!”

Lucy put on some coffee and fried up a pile of egg sandwiches. They sat on the front porch to eat their breakfast and to wait for Lucy’s brother Grady. According to Lucy, Grady was "fresh out of jail," and “knew the system better than anyone.” He would help Jackie get her car back without having to pay the impound fee. “I’m not promising,” Lucy said, “I’m just saying. I know he’s done it in the past.”

As they sipped their coffee, and Jackie was looking for somewhere to wipe the grease from her fingers, a big black shiny Silverado rolled up, and Grady stepped out. Grady was a broad-shouldered, square-jawed, good-looking man in his early thirties, who stood about six-two and weighed two-something, all of it muscle. His hair and eyes were light brown. All in all, he looked like a quarterback. He greeted Lucy and Wes, and his eyes settled on Jackie. Jackie felt something move inside her, and had the feeling Grady could feel it, too.

After introducing Jackie and Grady, Wes and Lucy stood up and shuffled into the house. Shortly after, a series of moans, cries, and rhythmic rocking made it clear what they’d gone inside to do.

Jackie looked up at Grady and realized that she was still a little high. She couldn’t account for how or when she’d gone from sitting on the porch looking at the shine on her fingers to standing next to Grady, close to Grady, with Grady’s arm around her, but somehow it happened, and somehow it seemed very natural. From there, it was just as natural to become aware of his big, strong hand, underneath her oversized shirt, resting on her naked ass.

“I hear you need some help getting your car back,” he said, and his voice resonated in her chest. In that moment, it was the sexiest thing on earth that any man had ever said.

“Yes,” she replied, hoping he could detect all of the heat and desire that she’d loaded into that word. He turned and looked into her eyes.

“You are shockingly beautiful,” he told her, and as he locked his eyes on hers, his thumb rode up her spine, lifting her shirt up in the back, and dragging it up the front of her torso. By the time his hand came to rest on the back of her neck, her shirt had bunched up underneath her breasts. The two of them looked down at her belly and at what lay beneath. “You’ve got a cute little belly button,” he told her, and slowly pulled her toward him. As his head moved down to bring his lips to hers, he added, “And you’ve got a sweet pair of lips... between your legs.” His mouth locked on hers. They kissed for a long, hot time, and their tongues reached out to caress each other. His hands gripped her derriere, and he lifted her briefly into the air. Then he gently set her down.

Once again he slid his hand up her back, carrying her shirt along with it, leaving her completely exposed, except for her breasts and shoulders.

“When those two finish rutting, they’ll fall asleep,” Grady told her, jerking his head toward the house. “We should get out of here. There are much nicer places to be.”

He guided her, with her shirt still halfway off, to his truck. He opened the door, and lifted her with ease into the passenger seat. “Where’s your stuff?” he asked.

They drove to a beautiful A-frame, all wood and glass. The yard was clean and well-kept; nothing like Lucy and Wes’ place. “This looks like something out of the 70s,” she observed. “Like a ski chalet. Is this your house?”

Grady snorted. “No. It’s not my house. It’s not my truck, either. I’m just using them while the owners are away.”

A few questions occurred to Jackie, questions she refrained from asking. But she did say, “Oh! I forgot to borrow some clothes from Lucy!”

“Yeah,” Grady said. “That’s not an immediate problem.”

He opened her door, set her bags on her lap, and carried her toward the house. He gently sat her on the steps. He sat down next to her and took his boots and socks off. He took a hose and washed Jackie’s feet and dried her feet on his shirt. “In this house, you leave your boots outside, and your clothes at the door. Come on, let’s go in.” When she stood up, he gave her an affectionate swat on the butt.

As she walked through the door, she pulled the big t-shirt off over her head, leaving her completely bare once again. It was beginning to be her habitual state. She dropped the turquoise t-shirt on a chair and walked into the living room in a state of awe. The ceiling went all the way to the top, maybe 30 feet. The front of the house was all windows, all one big room, from floor to roof. The kitchen, the bedrooms, the second floor, were all in the back of the house.

Jackie turned toward the sound of Grady closing the front door. He set her bags on the chair with her shirt. She was about to observe that he hadn’t left his clothes at the door, but Grady spoke first. “You need to take a bath,” he said. “Get the smell of last night off of you.”

She was surprised, and reflexively sniffed at her arms and hair again. “I’m not saying you smell bad,” he told her with a smile. “But upstairs there is one huge bathtub and plenty of hot water. You’ll thank me later.” With that, he walked over to her and scooped her up, with no effort at all. He carried her up the stairs as if she weighed nothing, and set her on her feet in the bathroom. He knelt down and started the water running. After pouring in some bubble bath, he swished it around to make suds while he tested the heat with his other hand.

“Just watch that it doesn’t get too hot,” he told her. “I need to go downstairs and make myself some breakfast. You want anything?”

“Some coffee would be good,” she said. “Coming right up,” he replied. He put his hand on the small of her back as he kissed her, and they both smiled.

He went downstairs to the kitchen, put on some coffee, and ate a handful of granola. By the time he brought the coffee upstairs, Jackie was sound asleep in the steaming hot suds, just as he’d expected. Grady left her cup on the edge of the tub and quietly returned to the living room. There, he took Jackie’s tote bag and emptied the contents onto the kitchen table.

“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” he said to himself.

Santa’s Helper (Sexy!) With Boots : 4 / 6

An Altered Fates Story
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

When Jackie awoke, her eyes opened to the sight of Grady, who was sitting on the bathroom floor, looking at her. His back was against the wall, and his head rested against the window sill. He’d perched his mug of coffee on the edge of the sink, to his right. She could see its steam curling up into the air. Her bathwater was still hot. She reached for her coffee cup, and that, too, was pleasantly hot. She took a sip. “Good coffee,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “They’ve got pretty decent stuff here. I had to reheat it a few times while you slept. It’s nice that the flavor survived all that nuking.”

She sipped and smiled. “Oh God, look at my fingers! They’re all wrinkled and pruny!”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Bath water will do that to you, when you’ve been in there for a while. Hey, tell me something,” he ventured, catching her completely off guard. “That car that you have to get back... does it belong to Jack, by any chance? Jack Redhaven?”

She froze. “Yes, um… Jack. Right. Yes, it’s Jack’s car.” She looked down and sipped her coffee. She tried to not show her surprise at hearing her real name. How did Grady come to know it? Did he know anything about her transformation? Would he believe her if she told him the truth?

“Won’t Jack want his car back?”

“Right, yes, he would.”

“What makes you think Jack isn’t going to go get the car himself?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, I guess he would… if he could… I guess.”

“You guess,” he repeated. He held her with an even, neutral gaze, silent, waiting for her to add something… anything. He learned this technique when he was interrogated by the police: guilty people tended to talk, if you simply waited and didn’t prompt them. The more they talked, the more were likely they were to slip up and tell you things they didn’t mean to tell. So he waited, expecting her to feel the need to fill the silence. But she didn’t. She sipped her coffee, looking down at the bubbles in the tub, uncertain whether to own up to her crazy, true story or just go with the flow, as she had so far. She shoved the bubbles around with her hand. At last, Grady could wait no longer. He had to ask her, “Who is Jack?”

Jackie let out a big breath. She had to tell him. “Okay. Who is Jack. That’s… that’s a story. It’s… quite a story. Can I get out of the tub and get dressed and then I’ll tell you?”

“You can get out of the tub, but you can’t get dressed. After you tell me the story of Jack, well, then we’ll see.”

She nodded, and stood up. He lifted her out of the tub and set her on the bath rug. He wrapped her from her neck to her toes in a huge, white towel -- the biggest, thickest, softest towel she’d ever experienced -- and draped a second, smaller towel over her head like a hood. He gently patted and caressed her body until her body was still humid, but not dripping. Then he vigorously rubbed her scalp and hair with the smaller towel, pressing the water from her hair. She watched his face closely as he held her. As he did all this to her, she tried to read his expression, but he was unreadable. She didn’t think he was angry or upset. He looked and acted with a maddening calm. He lifted her, all warm and cocooned in her towels. He cradled her in his arms, and carried her gently downstairs. Before he set her down, he dropped a throw pillow from the couch onto the floor in front of an armchair. He set her on her feet and took the big towel from her, leaving her naked once again, except for the small towel that covered her hair. I’ve been spending a lot of time naked since I became a girl, she thought. I don’t think that’s normal. But what is normal any more? Though the house was pleasantly warm, her nipples stood at attention. He put his hands on her hips, and as he lowered himself into the armchair, he pulled her toward him. With his chin, he gestured at the pillow between his feet and told her, “Kneel there.” She knelt between his big bare feet, resting her hands on her naked thighs. Her body was still warm and moist from the long, hot bath. Her skin was soft and lovely and utterly without flaw. She blinked and looked up at him, realizing yet again how long her lashes were. “Now, tell me all about Jack,” Grady told her. “But before you begin, I’m going to guess something: Jackie is not your real name. You’ve taken that from Jack.”

She nodded her lovely head. Then after a big, deep breath, she slowly began, “I know this is going to sound hard to believe, but…” From there, once she started, it was like diving off a cliff: she couldn’t stop. The story spilled out of her in one long, continuous flow. Grady didn’t interrupt her; he didn’t ask any questions. He let her run all the way through the events she’d been waiting to tell, dying to tell. She told it exactly the way it happened. She told him how Jack was hired to liquidate the theater, how he drove into town, how he found the box with “zulo” on the side, how the costume fell, and -- guess what! -- Jack became Jackie! She told him about her panic in the bathroom, the plan to get clothes, how she put on the costume, how her car was gone… about Lucy, the bus, the drugs, the Santas, …

When she reached the end, she stopped, surprised that she had no more to tell. She ended by telling him, “It’s all true. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what happened.”

He looked into her face without talking for two beats. Then he asked, “What did it say on that box? Was the word ‘zulu’?”

“No -- it was zulo,” she corrected, and she spelled it for him.

“Why didn’t you keep the necklace? Why didn’t you bring it with you?”

“Why would I?”

“It’s obviously connected to what happened to you. Isn’t it?”

Jackie blinked. “No, it was the costume that made me change. Wasn’t it? I mean, I had the necklace on for a while, and nothing happened. It wasn’t until the costume fell on me…” Suddenly she felt immensely stupid. It *was* obvious, wasn’t it: it was the medallion. “Oh, what an idiot I am.”

“Let’s put a pin in that for a minute,” he said. “I need a little time to think. Yeah. Time. And I need Jack’s phone unlocked. What’s the code?”

She fetched the phone and unlocked it for him. He pulled up a search window and began typing. She stood by his side, waiting, but soon it was clear that the phone had taken all his attention. She felt a rumble in her stomach, and went into the kitchen to find herself a snack. After she ate and drank, he was still reading something on the phone, so she wrapped herself in the big towel, lay down on the couch, and slept some more. When she woke, Grady was there, waiting for her, looking a little impatient. “I have one question,” he said. “Does Jack have a criminal record? Is he married? Is anybody looking for him for anything? Debts? Alimony? Child care?”

“No, none of the above,” she replied. “Why?”

“I’ll tell you in a little bit,” he said. “But I have a plan that will solve both our problems: yours and mine. And if you don’t like it, I have a plan to fix that, too. But we have to move. We have a few errands to run and not a lot of time. First, let’s get you some clothes to wear.”

In the master bedroom, they found a top, a skirt, and a pair of sneakers that fit well enough, but the underwear was all too small. “Leave the underwear,” Grady told her. “We’ll pick up some later.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s get a move on.”

They climbed into the truck and drove about a mile to a mobile home that was in worse shape than Lucy’s. “Good,” Grady observed. “Buddy’s not home. You wait here and don’t unlock the door until I tell you.” He ran inside, and Jackie could hear him, even through the truck’s closed windows, banging around, looking for something, rapidly opening and closing drawers and doors. While he was still searching, a beat-up pickup truck pulled into the yard, and a skinny young man jumped out. He had to be Buddy. He looked beaten down, sad, alone, abandoned. His face evoked pity and pain, as though he’d been crying for years. He stared at Jackie with big round eyes and shouted, “Who are you? Who the hell are you?”

Then, hearing the noises from within, he dashed into the house. The banging and crashing sounds increased in tempo, with the addition of shouts between Grady and Buddy.

Then the banging stopped, and Buddy cried out, “No! No! Put that down, God damn you! Put it down! Put it back! You got no right! It’s all I have! You can’t! My God, you have no heart! Stop! Stop! STOP, damn you!”

Grady burst out of the front door and ran for the truck, signalling Jackie to unlock the driver’s door. He jumped in, slammed the door behind him, and locked it.

Buddy ran up and hammered on Jackie’s window, crying and shouting. “You’re a grave robber, Grady! Do you hear me? You’re a goddam grave robber! You’ll rot in hell, you S.O.B. You got no right! YOU GOT NO RIGHT!” They could still hear him shouting even after they drove out of sight.

Grady didn’t make a sound or look at her. After a pregnant silence, and once they reached a paved road, Jackie asked, “What was that all about? Why did he call you a grave robber?”

“Okay,” Grady said after a glance at her. “I’ll tell you. You ought to know. But you cannot tell a soul. Not one, single soul. This is a deep, dark, terrible secret. If anyone comes to know it, the person who will suffer most of all is Buddy back there. It will tear him apart, and hurt him more than he can bear. Do you swear you’ll never tell?” Jackie agreed, and crossed her heart. Grady sighed again, then said, “That kid back there is Buddy Gammisen. I mean, he’s grown up, he’s an adult, but in his head, developmentally, he’s just a kid. He’s not a bad kid, but he’s not very bright. He’s kind of a simpleton. I’m not being unkind; I’m just telling you a fact. He had an older sister, Zadie, not much older than Buddy… a few years younger than me… anyway, she was a nice girl, a lovely girl, beautiful inside and out, with a good head on her shoulders."

Grady paused and took a deep breath before continuing. "Well, Buddy and Zadie's parents died in car crash. The two of them, mom and dad, all at once. Their father was a no-account fall-down drunk. One night, that night, drunk as hell, he drove his car straight into a tree. Killed himself and his wife -- Buddy and Zadie’s mother. After that, she and Buddy moved to that… to that shack back there, although it looked a lot nicer while Zadie was alive.

“Obviously, they never had much money, and up here in the hills, it’s very common for people to grow pot or to cook meth. It’s one of the few ways to earn a living. One day Buddy took it into his head that he was going to cook meth. He figured that’s how he’d contribute. But he didn’t understand how dangerous that business can be. I mean, sure, everybody’s heard about meth labs exploding and all that... Buddy knew that making meth is dangerous, but he figured he’d start small and that way he’d be safe. Somebody told Buddy about ‘shake and bake’ -- do you know what that is?" Jackie shook her head, so Grady explained. "It's when you mix the ingredients in a bottle and shake it. I don’t know the details, but if you do it right, eventually you get a small batch of meth. Just to say it like that, to describe it that way, it sounds simple, but the grim reality is that you’ve got highly volatile chemicals in a very potent reaction. The two most important things are that you know exactly what you’re doing, and that you pay close attention, and Buddy didn’t do either of those things. He didn’t learn all the details, and he got distracted. He left the bottle on a tree stump out back of their home. He forgot all about it and went off to look for me, so we could get some beers.

“Zadie came home while we were gone, and she went out looking for him. She ventured out back. She saw the bottle, didn’t know what it was. She touched it or picked it up or maybe it just went off by itself, but however it happened, the damn thing blew up and burst into flames.” Grady fell silent and looked off in the distance until he was sure he wasn’t going to cry. “Buddy wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. There was nobody there to help her, so she died, all alone. She burnt to death in that shitty little backyard there.

“Of course, we had no idea. We’d been drinking, and I dropped him home. The two of us were standing near the house, peeing in the bushes, laughing. All of a sudden he remembered about the bottle, so he ran back to get it. He figured by then it had to be ready, and that’s when he found her. I heard him screaming, so I...” Grady drew some deep breaths to steady himself before he went on. “God Almighty, it was horrible. It was the worst thing I’ve seen in my entire life. It shook me the core, but Buddy, he went all to pieces. He couldn’t stop screaming. I had to slap him in the face to make him stop.

“By rights we should have called someone. The police, the sheriff, somebody. But we didn’t. I wouldn’t let him. I couldn’t see Buddy in jail. I just couldn’t. So the two of us buried Zadie.

“Even so, poor Buddy was determined to mess it up and land himself in jail. He wanted to mark her grave with a cross, a wooden cross with her name on it and the date. Of course I couldn’t let him do it. I told him why, but the next night I went back to check, and sure enough he’d put up a marker. Zadie Gammisen, RIP, and the date. I took it down, and burned it. I dug her up and buried her a second time, far off, in a spot that Buddy wouldn’t know or ever find. Then I went and told him, and he went wild. He was desperate. He couldn’t understand. He wanted to honor her gravesite, and didn’t see that it would land him in jail.”

After a few moments of silence, Jackie asked, “Didn’t people wonder what happened to Zadie?”

“Oh, sure, of course they did.” Grady replied. “But me and Buddy spread the word that she’d gone East.”

“Gone East?” Jackie repeated. “What on earth does that mean?”

Grady gave her an irritated look. “East is that way,” he said, pointing with his finger. “You start walking in that direction, and you’ll hit one big city after another, from Carson City to Chicago, and beyond. She went East. It’s something people say around here. People do go East, you know.”

After about twenty minutes of driving, Grady pulled up in front of a sporting-goods store. He told her, “You stay here, don’t open the door for anyone. I’ll be right back.”

He returned fifteen minutes later with a big shopping bag, which he tucked behind the driver’s seat. One of the items was poking out the top of the bag. “Is that a woman’s bathing suit?” she asked.

“Yep. And a few other things. Luckily there was a salesgirl who was just the right size and shape.”

The right size and shape for what? she asked herself, but aloud she said, “Hey, can we stop somewhere? I really need to pee.”

“Yeah,” he said. “How do you feel about some food?”

“I could eat again,” she agreed.

“Okay, let me run over to that drugstore, and then we’ll get some food.”

He brought her to a diner. The place was bright and shiny and clean, and the menu had every possible kind of food on it. She ordered a chef’s salad and he ordered a steak. While they waited for their food to come, she asked him, “Do you believe me? Do you believe that I’m really Jack, or that I used to be Jack?”

Grady smiled. “Let’s say that I don't disbelieve you. I did a little research on your phone while you slept, and there’s quite a bit online about the Medallion of Zulo -- hence the ‘zulo’ on your box -- and what I read fits with your experience.”

“Really!”

“Yes, and also, a little closer to home, there was a story, happened right here in town. In fact, the story connects the medallion to the theater. It was back in 1961, way before I was born. As a kid, I was never clear on the details, but I found them after a little searching. There used to be an elite prep school for boys over in Premsby -- that’s the next town over. Back in those days the boys would put on a play every year in the very same theater where you found the necklace.

“That year, the play was Lady Windermere’s Fan. Since it was an all-boys school, the female parts had to be played by the younger boys. The drama teacher, who was a woman, apparently put the boys in their costumes every chance she could. Seemed she got some kind of thrill out of dressing boys in girls’ clothes. Anyway, the interesting part is that some way, somehow, she came into possession of the medallion, and -- either by accident or on purpose -- she turned one of the young boys into a young girl.”

“Oh, my God!” Jackie exclaimed, just as their food arrived. The waitress smiled and refilled their water glasses. After she left, Grady continued.

“Of course, no one believed her about the medallion. She wanted to change him back, but no one would let her near the child. The whole business ended very badly. The boy’s parents didn’t believe that this strange young girl was actually their son, transformed, so she became an orphan and went into the system. The teacher was charged with kidnapping, and they threatened to bring all sorts of other charges against her, including murder. See, everyone actually thought and believed that it was a double kidnapping: that she’d kidnapped a boy and a girl. In the end, the teacher and the girl disappeared, along with the theater’s maintenance man.”

“And nobody knows what happened to them?”

“Not as far as I can tell.”

“If the medallion could do all that, why didn’t they take it with them?”

Grady shrugged. “Maybe they figured it had caused enough trouble in their lives.” He chuckled to himself. “Maybe they didn’t have sexy Santa Baby costumes back then, so they couldn’t imagine what else to do with it.”

“Hmmph.” Jackie crunched her lettuce thoughtfully. “So, do you think the medallion can turn me back into Jack?”

Grady hesitated before he answered. “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

“Of course that’s what I want! Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Honestly? You don’t seem to mind being a girl. In fact, you seem to like it quite a bit. The way you walk and talk. The faces that you make… You’re all flirty and sexy and cute. Like, when you were in the bathtub, you were batting your eyes and saying in that little-girl voice oh, my little baby fingers are all pruny and wrinkly! Everything about you screams girl. But at the same time…” Grady hesitated again. “I don’t know how much of what I’m seeing is really you.” He scratched his head. “Look: I have to tell you something. I love submissive women: Passive, obedient, pliable women just drive me wild. And you are the most submissive, feminine, docile woman I have ever met or seen in my entire life. BUT -- and this is a big ‘but’ -- and even apart from the whole business with the medallion -- I don’t know if this is really you. I’m afraid that everything I’ve seen and experienced with you is just the effect of the drugs that Lucy gave you.”

“Wouldn’t that have worn off by now?” Jackie asked. “I don’t feel high at all. I haven’t for a while.”

“For most people, yes. It would have worn off hours ago. I’m no expert, and I’ve never taken ecstasy, but I do know that for some people, E can have an aftereffect that lasts for days, even a week, where the person is all happy and open and just --- well, just way too open. They’re… well, they’re like you are now. Face it, I’d love to fuck you every which way. I’d love to do all kinds of things to you. You must know that. You must feel that I want it. And God, I know I’ve taken liberties with you that I probably shouldn’t have, but there’s a good reason that I haven’t gone all the way. And believe me, it’s been a battle. Inside of me, it’s been a fight. Lord knows. But there’s one thing about submission that’s very important to me, and it’s this: submission has to be honestly and intelligently given. It’s all about consent. It’s a fully informed and conscious agreement between two people. And I’m not sure that you’re in a state where you can truly consent. I’m not sure you can authentically consent to anything, I mean.”

Jackie considered this in silence. It did make some sense. The way she behaved as Jackie was nothing like the way she behaved as Jack. Jack had zero trouble saying no. In fact, he liked saying no. Jack was kind of an asshole, really, and proud of it. Jackie, on the other hand, loved people and fun. Yes was the word that was written on her heart.

Grady continued:

“At the same time, I think about the things you did, before you took the drugs. You didn’t seem in any kind of hurry to get rid of your new girly self. You didn’t even try to explore why and how it happened. Think about it: What were the first things you did after you changed? What were the first things you wanted to do? You wanted to look in a mirror. You wanted to clean up. You wanted to get some nice clothes to wear. And then, what DID you wear? What was the first and only thing you even tried on? In a building full of costumes of every imaginable kind, you went and put on that sexy Check-Me-Out-and-Fuck-Me-Santa Baby-Doll outfit, with the shiny red panties. That’s what you did.”

Jackie blushed crimson, and responded, a little hotly, “And what would YOU have done?”

Grady laughed. “I’ll tell you what I wouldn’t have done! I wouldn’t have left that theater until I got my cock back! That’s for damn sure.”

Still flushing red, Jackie demanded, “And how exactly would you do that?”

Grady smiled and held up Jack’s phone. “I’d do it with this, exactly the way I did up at the house just now. I did a little searching, starting from the word z-u-l-o, and pretty quickly I knew all about the medallion and how it works. If you had done that, you’d know that if you just sat down and waited twelve hours, you could change yourself back.”

“But it’s been twelve hours,” Jackie protested. “It’s been MORE than twelve hours, and I haven’t changed back.”

“You can only change once every twelve hours, but you need the medallion to do it. Don’t worry, I’ll show you. I’ve got a plan.”

They took a few bites of food in silence, then Jackie asked, “Your plan -- you said you had a plan that would solve both our problems, yours and mine. What’s your problem?”

“Mmm,” Grady said, swallowing. “My problem is probation. I’m supposed to meet my probation officer tomorrow morning, and I know he’s going to violate me.”

“Violate you?” Jackie asked, alarmed. “Do you mean, like, rape?”

Grady almost choked on his coffee. Laughing, he told her, “No, no -- I mean, he’s going to throw me back in jail for violating the terms of my parole. I don’t want to get into the particulars. Let’s just say it would be immensely useful to me if I could be somebody else for a while. Or even permanently. Being me hasn’t been working for a while now. It’d be nice to have a clean slate.”

Jackie nodded.

They finished their food, than made a quick stop at the theater to pick up the medallion. They put it inside the necklace case to keep it safe and to prevent accidental transformations.

That was the last of their errands, so from the theater, they went to Jack’s motel room.

Jackie looked around. Everything was exactly as she’d left it -- or, as Jack had left it. Although only one day had passed, it seemed like years since she’d been in that room. Jack’s suitcase was exactly where Jack had dropped it. Jack really hadn’t used the room at all; he’d only checked in and run off to the theater -- the theater, where everything had changed. It seemed as though she’d lived an entire lifetime as Jackie. Was she ready to change back? Did she want to change back?

She looked at Grady, who was busy laying clothes and other items on the bed. She saw the bathing suit he’d just bought, and now he was opening and unrolling a condom that seemed impossibly long. “I don’t know if I’m up for that,” she found herself saying.

“That’s interesting,” Grady observed. “It sounds like you’re starting to come back to yourself. That’s the closest you’ve come to saying ‘no’ since I met you. Anyway, don’t worry -- this isn’t for what you think.” He stopped and surveyed the items on the bed. Then, realizing what was missing, he opened Jack’s suitcase and took out a pair of boxer shorts. “Jack *has* worn these, right?” he asked. Jackie nodded.

“Okay, here we go,” Grady said, rubbing his hands nervously. “Now we’ll see if this thing works as advertised.” He kicked off his shoes and pulled off his shirt. As he started opening his pants, he nodded to Jackie. “You should take your clothes off, too.”

By the time they were both naked, her breasts were freely bobbing, and he had an erection of considerable size. Grady saw her looking, so he said, “You know that I want to, but let’s do this medallion thing and see if it really works. Because if it doesn’t, I’ll need to high-tail it out of here. There may already be a warrant out for my arrest.”

Grady sat Jackie in a chair, and then bound her hands with zip ties. “What happened to consent?” she quipped, only half-joking.

“This is just a precaution,” he replied. “If you touch the medallion in the wrong way at the wrong time, we’ll be screwed.” She nodded. He took a breath.

Jackie asked him, “You’re really nervous, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, of course I am,” he responded. “I’m afraid it won’t work -- and then what? I’ll be on the run. And I’m afraid it *will* work. If it really works, it’s going to be a whole new life, with all that it entails.”

“Okay,” she said in a doubtful tone.

“Listen,” he told her. “This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to change us both, and if you don’t like the result, we can change again tomorrow morning. It’s almost six now. It’ll probably take a half hour each to transform, so that’s seven. We can change again at seven AM, or twelve hours after we’re done changing. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’m going to change first, then I’ll change you. Now, I told you that I think the drug is still affecting you, so I’m going to change you into somebody -- a real somebody with a birth certificate and other documents, so you can live a real life.” She frowned, not understanding. “What I’m thinking is that that is what you really want: you want to be a young, good-looking woman. This way, you can do that. I might be wrong; we’ll see. After you change, the drugs should be out of your system, and then you can tell me what you really want.”

“And who are you going to change into?” Jackie asked.

“Watch and you’ll see,” he told her. He put the medallion around his neck, and touched Jack’s boxers to it. He gasped slightly as the tingling sensation hit him, then slowly the changes began to spread over his body. Jack was a tall man, but not anywhere near as muscular and wide as Grady. As the two of them watched, Grady grew slimmer. Fine lines appeared around his eyes and mouth. His lips thinned. His hair darkened, and his shoulders narrowed. His neck and face got smaller as well. Grady looked down at his penis, and saw that it was growing shorter as well.

“I kind of thought so,” he commented, and picked up the long condom from the bed. He held it against the medallion until his cock grew to what seemed to Jackie an unnatural length. “See? Once you're transformed, you can use the medallion to do some tweaks." He looked at himself, hefted his cock in hand experimentally. "That’s better,” Grady said, approvingly. “Now we do you.”

He hung the medallion around her neck, and touched it with an old cotton dress that he picked up from the bed. Grady dragged her chair closer to the mirror on the back of the door so she could see her reflection. As she watched, her hair grew shorter, curlier, and lightened to a sandy, reddish brown. Her breasts began shrinking and her hourglass figure widened to a narrow rectangle. She had a cute face, but the rest of her… Oh, Lord! “I’m flat as a board!” she cried, “and I’ve got big feet!”

She looked at Grady, who was stunned by the transformation. It was a shock for him to see Zadie’s face again. “Don’t worry,” he said, coming back to himself. “Zadie always hated her figure and her feet, so we’ll fix that now. Like I told you, once you're transformed, you can use the medallion to do some tweaks.” He touched the medallion with a small-sized pair of womens sneakers. Then, once Jackie’s feet shrank to fit the sneakers, he touched the medallion with the bathing suit he’d bought earlier. Jackie’s figure began to morph once again, filling out to match the bathing suit’s measurements. In moments, the medallion returned to her the curvy hips, narrow waist, and generous breasts that Jackie had so quickly gotten used to.

Once the changes were complete, Grady cut the zip ties from Jackie’s wrists, and the two took stock of themselves and of each other.

“Shit, it really works!” the new Jack whispered, in a voice filled with awe.

“What the hell?” Jackie asked, once again startled by the new voice coming out of her mouth.

Santa’s Helper (Sexy!) With Boots : 5 / 6

An Altered Fates Story
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

“You’re me!” Jackie exclaimed, incredulous.

“That’s the idea,” Grady said, nodding.

“You’re ME!” Jackie repeated, stunned at seeing herself, hearing herself -- Jack, a man -- while she remained a woman.

Grady nodded. He was watching her closely, studying her reactions.

“So who *I* am supposed to be?” demanded Jackie.

“You’re Zadie Gammisen,” Grady replied.

“The dead girl? Zadie Gammisen? How can I -- She --- I can’t be her! I’m -- she’s -- she’s DEAD!”

“Evidently not,” Grady replied, gesturing at Zadie’s new incarnation. “Look: in that bag on the bed, there’s her birth certificate, social security, drivers license… there’s even her vaccination record and her high school diploma. There’s some old family photos in there, too.You can see what your parents looked like. You can see what you looked like as a little girl--”

Jackie cut him off. “I don’t give a crap about any of that! I’m still a woman!”

“Right, I know,” Grady said. “But look: a couple of minutes ago, you were nobody. You didn’t even have a real name. Now you have an identity, and an amazingly hot body to boot!”

“I don’t want a new identity! I don’t want an amazingly hot body! I don’t want to see what I looked like as a little girl! I want to be ME! I want to change back to Jack! I’m Jack Redhaven! I’m supposed to be Jack Redhaven. You don’t get to be me!”

Grady’s expression showed his disappointment and surprise. His face actually went white with dismay. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. There was no way for me to tell for sure what you wanted, no matter which way I asked you. You were in a state where you’d agree to anything. I couldn’t trust that any choice you made really reflected what you want. If you recall, I said all of that to you, at the time.”

Jackie fumed. She could see the justice in Grady’s remarks, but at the same time, she was angry. Angry at herself, mostly, but angry at Grady as well. She’d been so stupid! Stupid to put on the silly outfit. Stupid to go outside in those clothes! Stupid to get on the bus! Stupid to take those pills!

Grady was eyeing her. He was full of caution, uncertain what exactly she was feeling. More than that, he wasn’t sure what was safe for him to say. “I’m guessing you’re not too happy,” he ventured, lamely.

“That’s an understatement,” she shot back.

“I really thought you wanted to be a girl,” he told her. “You seemed so natural at it.”

“Because I have such a small dick?” she said hotly, turning red as she spoke.

“Hey, you’re average, I suppose. But how could I know? I didn’t see it until I changed.”

“But you assumed!”

“I didn’t assume. I just brought some insurance. I didn’t want to be caught short down there.” After a pause, he added, “You can do the same for yourself when you change back to Jack.”

Jackie looked away, offended and embarrassed. In spite of her strong emotions, she did her best to try to calm down. “All right,” she said, trembling slightly from anger and adrenaline. “Let’s discuss this rationally. Let’s talk about next steps.”

Grady told her, “Until now, I was thinking that the two of us could do the theater liquidation job, and see if we liked being together. I felt that we had good chemistry. We’d do that, and take it from there. With the medallion, we could always redo our choices.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, what do we need to do for me to get my body back. I need to be Jack Redhaven, and I need to be the ONLY Jack Redhaven. You said that if I didn’t like this, you’d fix it. I want to know how and when.”

Grady was embarrassed. He never intended to go back on his word, but he also never thought he’d have to live up to it. “Okay,” he said. “Seven o’clock tomorrow morning, you get to be Jack again. We’ll do what we did just now, pretty much.”

“And who will you be?”

Grady replied in a small voice, “I guess I’ll have to be Zadie.” For now, he added silently.

Jackie nodded grimly. “That sounds about right. We’ll see how natural it is for you.” Then she set her lip, gave him a fierce look in the eye, and walked into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind her. She had the feeling she was about to cry, and she absolutely did not want to cry in front of Grady.

It was almost exactly a day since she turned into Jackie, and here she was, back again, turned into a woman again. A different woman, but still, a woman... again. This time was different, though: this time she knew how and why it happened. She also knew how it would end: she’d go back to being Jack.

At the same time, now that her confrontation with Grady was over and she was alone, now that the drug and its effects was fully out of her system, she began to feel and recall all that she’d been through in the past 24 hours. All the indignities, the assaults… all those god-damn dirty Santas. The memories didn’t unfold like a story: they burst one at a time like little neural explosions on the view screen of her mind. Faces, hands, smells, sensations, tastes… oh God. It was awful. She was cringing so much that she wanted to vomit.

She sat on the closed toilet, her fists curled into two tight balls, her head bowed, her eyes tight shut, her jaw clenched like a bear trap.

After the horrible backroom Santa orgy had ended… then came Grady. He was nice enough and good enough. He wasn’t ugly and creepy like the Santas. He did treat her to that lovely bath and that soft towel rubdown, but he kept her naked nearly the entire time he was with her! She recalled, blushing furiously, the way he slipped his hand under her shirt -- which happened to be the only clothes she was wearing -- how he lifted it up to show her ass, her pussy, her stomach and back… everything but her breasts. But he’d seen her breasts, too. She remembered how his blue eyes rested there, on her twin beauties.

And she knelt at his feet! Actually! Literally! No metaphor there. She was naked, on her knees, on the floor between his feet!

She wanted to hate him and resent him. He had used her. He’d stolen her identity, for Christ’s sake! But he did seem at heart to be a good person, someone who tries to do right by others. He had protected Buddy, even if Buddy didn’t understand it.

But on the other hand, he stole from Buddy! She saw him do it. And didn’t Grady say there was there a warrant out for his arrest? Why was he on parole? No, not parole, the other thing -- probation, right. Probation. He must have done something wrong, broken some law. You don’t get on probation by being a good person.

What had Grady done? What crime had he committed? As the question came bubbling up in her mind, displacing all her unpleasant memories, another question quickly took the fore: What was Grady doing right now? She’d left him all alone. For all she knew, he’d run off with the medallion and her face.

She jumped to her feet and whipped open the bathroom door, still naked, her breasts swinging.

Grady was sitting on a towel that he’d draped over a chair. He was looking at the floor when Jackie emerged, and slowly lifted his head to look at her. She was taken aback. He was still here: he hadn’t run. Clearly (since he hadn’t bothered to dress), he had no intention of going anywhere. That was reassuring. But his face looked so sad! Jackie was stunned. She was looking at her own face, Jack’s face. She’d seen sadness on that face before: she knew what it looked like, and she knew how it felt.

Why was Grady so sad?

Earlier, when Jackie ran off to the bathroom, Grady was glad to be left alone for a moment. He needed to think. But first, there was something he needed to do: he needed to hide the medallion. He didn’t want to leave himself open to anything that Jackie might do to him, either for revenge or out of good intentions. After a quick look around, he popped the medallion back in its case, and stashed the case on top of the closet, where she wouldn’t be able to reach or even see it.

Then he put on a pot of coffee. He felt like he hadn’t had a cup all day, even though he’d just consumed two at the diner. But… now he was Jack, and Jack hadn’t had any. The water bubbled and dripped in the coffeemaker.

He looked at the pair of Jack’s boxers, but he didn’t put them on. There didn’t seem to be any point to getting dressed, especially when he had no idea how Jackie might react to seeing him in her -- or Jack’s -- clothes.

He draped a towel over one of the motel armchairs, and poured himself a cup of coffee. It was time to review his options. His best hope was that Jackie would relent, and decide to remain Zadie. He wouldn’t force her or trick her. He couldn’t bring himself to do that, especially now that she had Zadie’s face. Oddly, he didn’t feel the same love and connection that he’d always felt with the real Zadie. Sure, Jackie was Zadie now, but only physically. There was a different person inside. The same body -- more or less -- but a different driver.

There was probably no way he could talk her into remaining as Zadie. If she was going to go for it, it would have to be her idea. Or at least seem to be her idea. Maybe if they slept together? That might sell it for her. He had caught her glancing at his cock more than once, and though they were quick looks, her face betrayed her interest. He could tell she was curious. If he had what looked like the right timing, he might coax her into enjoying her last night as a woman. So far, she hadn’t experienced sex without drugs, sex without Santas.

He was pretty sure none of the Santas had a cock as impressive as the one he was now wearing. It was bigger than Grady’s, and Grady’s was pretty big.

On the other hand, he might couch it as a plea for himself: since he was sacrificing his manhood for her, could she grant him one last wish as a man? Could he use his cock before he had to lose his cock? Before he took the role of Zadie?

Grady did NOT want to be Zadie. If there was any way to avoid it, he would have to try. Zadie meant too much to him. It was bad enough seeing Jackie walking around with Zadie’s face. How could he bear to look in the mirror and see Zadie’s face there?

But honestly, what other options were there? Whatever they were, they had to be in this room. Clothes were the key to the transformation. He looked at Jack’s boxers again. But that was out of the question: he couldn’t be Jack. He looked at Jackie’s little bag with the Santa’s Helper costume. That idea, too, was a nonstarter. Not only because he didn’t want to be a bimbo: The real problem was that the person he’d known as Jackie wasn’t a real person, a person with an identity, a name, a social security card. Grady needed all those things, or his immediate future would be a little more complicated.

Another possibility was to go out and buy some new clothes. Then he could be anyone. He could be an 18-year-old boy, if he wanted. But again, he wouldn’t be a real person, a person with documents.

The more he thought about it, the more clearly he saw was that his only real possibility was to be Zadie. He needed a drivers license to get out of town, and he needed a name and a social security number to open a bank account. Zadie had all those things.

And sure, Jack had those things as well, but…

That was as far as his thoughts had gone when Jackie whipped open the bathroom door. He looked up at her, at Jackie with Zadie’s face, and realized what a terrible mistake he’d made. Buddy had spoken the truth: he had no right. Jackie, with Zadie’s face, was a sacrilege. Zadie was a saint, an angel from heaven. Jackie -- well, Jackie wasn’t a bad person, but she wasn’t going to win any Nobel Prize.

Jackie stood in the bathroom doorway, a little surprised, a little confused, but still with an undertone of anger and resentment, she asked, “What’s wrong? Why so sad? Is it because you don’t want to be a girl?”

As she said those words, she instantly regretted them. Not because they were unkind and unnecessary, but because her returning to being Jack did depend on Grady. No, revise that: now that she understood how the medallion worked, she could turn back to Jack by herself AND add inches to her penis, but Grady could still screw things up if he wanted. All he had to do, in fact, was leave, and there would be two Jack Redhavens. Or one, who wasn’t her. So she apologized. There was plenty of time to be a jerk AFTER they both changed again.

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’ve been through a lot in the past few days -- I mean, the past DAY, but I have to say, I haven’t seen my face look that sad in a long time. What’s wrong?”

Her question sank deep into his heart, and it set loose a realization that had been cooking inside him all evening, starting from when he saw Buddy and stole the last remnants of Zadie. He realized that he couldn’t leave Jackie as Zadie. He couldn’t bear it. And at the same time, he didn’t want to be Jack Redhaven any more. He didn’t like Jack.

Jack was old, for one thing. Not “old” old, but older than Grady. Grady missed the energy and power his own body possessed. Jack had all sorts of little aches and pains that he’d probably gotten used to over the years, but those pains and problems were new to Grady, and he could feel them all. Jack had flat feet and bunions. His hamstrings and calves were so tight, they were hard as rocks. His shoulders, too, were a solid mass of tension, and his right shoulder pulled up higher than his left. Probably Grady could work out all those kinks if he had to, but he didn’t want to. Jackie wanted to be Jack, so let her be Jack.

That’s what Jack was feeling when Jackie asked him what was wrong, but there was no way Grady was going to tell her any part of that.

He also wasn’t going to tell her all of the thoughts he’d just run through, the evaluation of his options. He didn’t need to lay his cards on the table. So he told her something else, something she might find reassuring, since it meant he’d give up being Jack.

“I’m thinking about what it will mean to be Zadie,” he said.

“Are you thinking about pretty dresses and makeup and going whoring with your sister Lucy?”

A brief flame of anger lit in Grady’s chest, but he let it die. “There will be a lot to learn, yeah,” he admitted. “But I’ve realized that if I had to be any woman in the world, I’d want to be Zadie.”

“You really loved her, didn’t you?” Jackie asked, not unkindly.

“Yeah, I did,” he said. “And so did Buddy.”

“Ohhh,” Jackie said with a nod, thinking she understood. “Now that you see me as Zadie, you’re feeling guilty.”

“Guilty?” Grady didn’t understand what she was getting at.

“About the things Buddy said, the names he called you. Graverobber.” She smiled at him, smiling with Zadie’s face, but with a cruel twist that Zadie would never have given, especially when talking about Buddy. She wanted to hurt Grady, to torture him even, and she suddenly saw a way to do exactly that.

Jackie walked to a spot between Grady and the bed, and turned her back to him. Then she crossed her ankles and bent over, so that he not only had a complete view of her excellent backside, but also of her pussy and her butthole. She smoothed out the bed with her hands, wiggling a little, making the moment last as long as she reasonably could. Then she turned to face him, letting her breasts bob and sway. She didn’t say a word. She simply stood there waiting for her breasts to stop moving.

Grady licked his lips. His impossibly long penis was sticking straight up in the air. “You don’t have to arouse me,” he told her. “I’m already aroused.”

She laughed and threw herself backward, onto the bed, opening her legs wide. Unfortunately for her seductive technique, the mattress let out a fearful set of squeaks, and the wooden headboard leaned dangerously and frighteningly down, as if to strike her face. Then after a heart-stopping pause, it swung back to hit the wall twice, with a sound like a baseball bat.

“Hey! Goddamn it!” the man in the next room shouted, and he pounded three times on the wall. “There’s other people in here, you know!”

“Sorry!” Jackie shouted. After a pause, she added quietly, “Guess that killed the mood.”

Grady shrugged. “I really wasn’t in the mood, to tell the truth.”

Jackie shook her head, not sure whether to believe him. “So, if we’re not going to have sex,” she said, “What can we do until 7 AM? I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”

“We can watch TV,” he suggested. “I’m sure there’ll be some terrible movie on.”

She shrugged. “Or we could talk.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he agreed.

“Because I do have a question I’ve been wanting to ask you: what did you do that put you in jail and left you on probation?”

“Mmm,” he said. He chewed on his lip for a moment and nodded. Then he said, “Okay, I’ll tell you. It’s all a matter of public record anyway. Remember I told you that somebody gave Buddy the idea to make meth, but didn’t really explain it to him? So… I got Buddy to tell me who that was. It was a pair of brothers, drug dealers, kids from out of town, smart alecks. I knew what they looked like. They were young and skinny, and I figured I could take them both. I went over to this garage they owned. I didn’t mean to kill them. I only meant to beat them up.”

“Only?” Jackie echoed.

“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t go there to kill them. Sure, I meant to leave them lying on the ground, maybe send them to the hospital, but that’s all. I blamed them for telling Buddy enough to hurt him, and I blamed them for killing Zadie. I wanted to hurt them bad, I wanted to fuck them up, but you know, these guys weren’t stupid. At their place -- the place where I went looking for them, they had inventory -- drugs -- and they had cash, so they weren’t just hoping that no one would rob them. They were ready… not for me in particular... they were ready for anybody who might come around, trying to cause trouble.

“I went in, hot and fast. I was in such a rush that I only saw one of them. I thought he was alone. So I knocked him down, but his brother popped out of nowhere and hit me with a pipe. Needless to say, that turned the tide in their favor, and they started to beat the hell out of me. They really did a number on me. And yes, the irony wasn’t lost on me: They were doing to me exactly what I wanted to do to them.” Grady paused.

“It got to a point, you know -- it became clear that they weren’t going to just teach me a lesson. They were going to kill me: Finish me off, throw my body somewhere, and forget I ever existed. So I got desperate, and I got lucky. I got one good punch in, a sucker punch, and that turned the tide in *my* favor. This time, I didn’t waste time beating on them. I killed them. I killed them both, as quick as I could. Then I left.”

“You didn’t clean up? Destroy the evidence? Make sure the police couldn’t find you?” Jackie brought to bear all of the experience she gained from watching CSI shows on TV.

“Not at all,” Grady explained. “I was hurt too badly. Plus, I’m not a forensic scientist. There’s no way I would have found every single trace. It was too much of a mess. My blood, their blood, was everywhere. Anyway, I wanted to turn myself in.”

“What!? Why would you do that?”

“I knew I’d never get away with it. I needed to get ahead of it: if I was going to plead self-defense, turning myself in was a good first step.”

“But it didn’t work, right? I mean, you went to jail.”

“Yeah. I was found guilty, and now I’m a felon. But remember: I was beat to hell, and the story I told was basically true and fit all the facts, so I got a pretty light sentence, considering. That’s why I was let out on probation.”

“But you said there’s a warrant…”

“Yeah, my probation officer thinks that I belong in jail, so he made something very clear from the outset: He’s going to keep finding pretexts for throwing me back inside.”

“Can he do that?”

“He can do whatever the hell he likes. He owns me. That’s why not being Grady would suit me just fine.”

Jackie nodded, taking all this in. Grady sighed and looked at the floor. There was more, but he wasn’t going to tell Jackie… or anyone else, for that matter. After he’d killed the brothers, Grady went looking for a sink so he could wash the blood off his face, arms, and hands. On his way there, he found a room where the brothers had been counting cash. Grady didn’t know how much money was there. It wasn’t a million dollars, but it was more money than he’d ever seen. Grady grabbed a small backpack and filled it, starting with the big bills.

He wasn’t greedy; he didn’t take it all. He didn’t want anyone to know he’d taken anything. He was careful to touch nothing but the money that went into the backpack. Then he left. Before he went to the police and turned himself in, Grady hid the backpack. No one knew about the backpack or the money, so no one was looking for it. Right now, the backpack was tucked away in the black Silverado that Grady had appropriated. The owners of the truck probably wouldn’t miss it for at least a month, and by then he had intended to be far far away.

Now that he was someone else, the “far far away” wasn’t as urgent or important as it had been an hour earlier.

After he told Jackie the story (minus the bit about the money), there didn’t seem to be anything else to talk about, so they sat on the bed, naked, side by side, watching one black-and-white movie after another. At three in the morning they tried to call for pizza, but both pizzerias in town were closed. They drank another pot of coffee. Each of them went through all the TV channels three times without finding anything to watch… and then they fell asleep in each others’ arms.

Jackie woke first, at six AM. Her eyes snapped open, and the clock’s glowing numbers were right in front of her. She eased her way out from under Grady’s arm and tiptoed to the bathroom. She meant to not flush, but forgot and did it anyway, out of habit. She was trying to be quiet, to not wake Grady.

She knew there was still an hour to go -- or at least that’s what Grady told her -- but she wanted to try to change back on her own. Maybe the timing wasn’t as strict as Grady believed. She’d change back, then change Grady in his sleep. See how he’d like it!

But she couldn’t find the medallion! She looked everywhere, until she realized: Grady had hidden it. Asshole! She sat in a chair, wiggling impatiently, watching the numbers on the clock slowly change.

Grady woke at ten to seven. Without a word, he used the bathroom. Then, slowly and carefully, he laid the various items on the bed: Jack’s boxers, the long condom, Zadie’s dress, the little sneakers and the bimbo-esque bathing suit. He paused and looked them over.

“You’re killing me!” Jackie cried. “Let’s just do it!”

“Let’s take the extra minute or two to do it right,” he told her. “We don’t want to mess up and have to wait another 12 hours.” He paused, as if trying to remember something. “There is one thing I have to tell you, so we don’t screw this up--”

“Where’s the medallion?” she demanded, cutting him off.

“This is important,” he said. “It’s just one word of caution. Be careful--”

“The medallion!” she said tensely, balling her fists and gritting her teeth. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

“Okay,” he said, slowly taking the necklace case down from atop the closet. “But listen, don’t--”

“I got it, I got it,” she told him. “I saw what you did last time. We’ll do the same thing. Except this time, you won’t tie me up!”

Grady blushed at that, but he tried one more time to warn her, “Just don’t touch--”

Jackie hissed in impatience and grabbed the medallion off the bed. “WE’RE DOING THIS NOW!” she growled. “NO MORE TALKING!”

Grady put up his hands in surrender, and she dropped the necklace around his neck.

Santa’s Helper (Sexy!) With Boots : 6 / 6

An Altered Fates Story
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

Grady was seriously concerned. Jackie was upset and in a hurry, and she didn’t exactly know what she was doing. This is when things go badly wrong, he thought. This is how Zadie got killed: when someone doesn’t know what they’re doing and they aren’t paying attention.

Grady kept his hands up, chest height, palms out. The pose was apparent surrender, but what he was really doing was staying ready in case he had to grab Jackie’s hands. He had to make sure she didn’t grab the medallion. He tried to warn her, but she wouldn’t listen. She was animated, angry, moving too fast, and talking the whole time.

“You want to make some BIG MYSTERY out of this,” she said. “You pretended that you needed to tie me up yesterday so I wouldn’t screw things up. Fuck that! You just wanted to have me naked, tied to a chair, so you could get off on it. Maybe we’ll do that to you after we’re done with this, huh? I can tie you up, naked, to a chair. How would you like that?”

Grady to humor her. It seemed the safest tactic at the moment. “I guess I owe you,” he told her.

“Yes, you do!” she exclaimed as she pressed Zadie’s dress against the medallion. Grady felt the strange tingle go through him, lifting his penis in a final salute. Jackie watched with greedy eyes as Grady’s body and arms became more delicate, as his head and shoulders narrowed and his hair grew longer. But she crowed with vengeful satisfaction as Grady’s balls got smaller and smaller until they disappeared beneath his cock. Then his cock shrank away, turning thinner as the two watched it shrivel away. As it lost thickness, it lost inches as well, until it seemed like a tiny worm, two inches long, then one inch, until it finally receded inside his labia minora. “Look at you!” she cried, mocking him. “Isn’t that cute! Not so extra-large now, are you! No, not any more you’re not!”

Grady gasped at the sight of his crotch. His eyes went up to his reflection in the mirror on the back of the door. Zadie’s face, of course, was perfect in his eyes, but seeing her square body, her small breasts, and her big feet, he felt an awkward, empathetic distress for the real Zadie, who -- as lovely as she was -- had never liked her body.

“Let’s tweak a few things, now, huh? Let’s take that fixer-up and fix her up!” Jackie continued. “You need some pretty little feet, don’t you, girl?” She pressed the sneakers against the medallion, and as Grady’s feet became more petite, Jackie picked up the bathing suit. “And now for the pièce de résistance! You can’t go out whoring with your sister Lucy with a body like that, can you? You won’t have the boys prodding and pawing and pissing on your if you look like that! You need a little more bimbo in that body, don’t you? Time to pump up those breasts and put some oomph into that behind!” Jackie laughed loudly and unkindly, holding the swimsuit a few inches from the medallion, prolonging the tease and the mockery. Then she went in for the kill, holding the swimsuit against the medallion, pressing hard, as though more pressure would squeeze out more humiliation and shame.

Grady flushed red from head to foot. When he bought the swimsuit, he honestly believed he was doing Jackie a favor: that she’d appreciate having her a hot, hourglass shape, with those generous breasts, and that spectacular ass. But now that it was happening to him, now that he was taking on that shape, he felt humiliated and stupid. Above all, he was ashamed that he’d done it to Jackie. He dropped his arms and stared at himself in the mirror. Zadie, back from the dead. It was sobering. More than sobering, it was shocking, and it made him realize how dangerous the medallion was. He wondered what Buddy would think if he could see this new Zadie. Would it throw him over the edge?

Jackie read the shame and regret on Grady’s face. At first, Jackie felt a strong sense of justification and satisfaction. Those feelings were quickly followed by pity and compassion. She took a step back and dropped the swimsuit on the bed. “Look,” she said. “I know that I was angry when I did this to you, but I think you deserved it, at least a little.”

“I understand,” Grady replied. “I didn’t take into consideration how you would feel when I did this to you.”

“Yeah,” Jackie agreed. “I know you didn’t. Well, how about this: you live like this for a day like I did, and see if you can figure out someone else you’d rather be. If you do, and you want to change, we can make that happen tomorrow morning. Okay? Does that sound fair?”

“Yes,” Grady replied, heaving a sigh of relief. “It sounds more than fair.” He was pretty sure he’d already considered all his options, but maybe there was something he hadn’t thought of. Maybe in the space of a day, he’d come up with something better, someone else he’d rather be.

“Now, it’s my turn!” Jackie exclaimed. She reached out and abruptly seized the medallion with her hand.

“Nooooo!” Grady cried, lifting his hands uselessly in what seemed like slow motion. He was too late to stop her, too late to grab her wrists or swat her hands away.

Jackie gasped as the tingle ran through her body. “What the hell?” she asked. “What’s happening to me? WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME NOW?”

“You shouldn’t have touched the medallion,” Grady explained. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. This is why I tied you to the chair last night.”

“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!” Jackie repeated, verging on hysteria. “So who am I now?”

“If you touch the medallion when someone else is wearing it, the two of you exchange forms.”

“Oh, fuck!” Jackie shouted. “You’re just making this shit up now!”

“No, seriously,” Grady told her. “You’re going to be Grady, at least for the next twelve hours.”

“No, no, no! This doesn’t make any sense at all!” Jackie exclaimed, and as she shouted, her voice grew deeper. Her body filled out, muscles growing as her arms and legs lengthened. Her hair shortened and her eye color changed. Her pussy parted, and a small penis emerged. As they watched, it slowly grew, and a pair of balls dropped beneath and behind the brand new cock. Jackie fell silent as she watched it grow to a decent size, silently comparing what she could see to what she remembered having as Jack.

The two of them glanced at the condom on the bed. Jackie shook her head. “I’m not going to bother. I’m not staying this way.”

Then Jackie gave a suspicious, sideward look at Zadie. “And how come you’re not turning into Jack again, if we’re ‘exchanging forms,’ as you put it.”

“It’s because I just changed,” Zadie replied. “I can’t change again for at least twelve hours.”

“Oh, FUCK THE TWELVE HOURS!” Jackie shouted, and gave way to a fit of angry cursing.

The new Zadie looked at the new Grady. She suddenly realized how small she was, and how physically weak in comparison. She could almost feel the rage radiating out of him, and saw bewilderment mixed with angry frustration written on his face. She didn’t feel safe. She didn’t feel safe at all.

“Listen,” she told him. “Now that you’re Grady, you should probably keep out of sight. I’ll get dressed and pick up some food, and then at--” she glanced at the clock “--at, like, say, eight o’clock tonight, you can finally change back to being Jack.”

Jack shot Zadie an intense look, flaming with anger and -- could there even be murderous intent in those eyes? Could he be so violently upset that he’d want to do her harm?

“Fuck you! Fuck you and all your stupid words and plans!” Jack growled in a low animal tone, “Fuck your twelve hours and your secret, idiot rules! You’re nothing but trouble! All you do is use me and trick me and mislead me, and I’ve had enough! Do you understand me? I have had enough!” With that, he grabbed the bag from the sports store. Zadie quickly perceived what was coming, so she snatched the Silverado’s keys and the bag with Zadie’s documents. Jack tossed the sports clothes out the motel door. Then he scooped up the other items of women’s clothes off the bed, and tossed them out the door as well: the sneakers, the old cotton dress, and the bathing suit.

Jack took Zadie’s arm, squeezing so hard that it hurt. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. Jack pulled her to the door and shoved her outside, naked as she was.

“You kept me naked, you bastard. Now let’s see if you enjoy it, you goddamn motherfucker!” Jack slammed the door loudly and locked it, leaving her alone, naked, standing on the motel balcony, overlooking the parking lot and the street. She looked down at the street and the stores, but no one appeared to have noticed her yet. Then she jumped at the sound of a soft cough behind her. “Sorry,” a man’s voice softly said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” The man was standing in front of the room next door. He looked to be in his forties. He was smoking a cigarette and trying to not be too obvious about enjoying her nakedness.

“Sorry,” she told him. “Obviously we’ve had a little fight.”

“No need to apologize,” he replied with a smile. “I’m sorry for your troubles, but if you don’t mind my saying so, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. You’re really making my day.”

“I can imagine,” she muttered. She reached into the sporting goods bag and pulled out a set of black nylon panties and a bra. Before she had time to break off the price tags off and put them on, she heard Jack unlocking the door. Oh, thank God! He’s relented! He’s changed his mind! Zadie thought. But no, he only opened the door a crack, only to shove through a few more items: the Sharknado shirt and the flip-flops, and the top, skirt, and shoes that they took from the house in the hills, and -- the item that started it all -- the Santa’s Helper costume, complete with shiny red panties. Then he slammed the door again and locked it once more.

Because it was the quickest thing, Zadie tried to put on the skirt and top. They were a bit small, so she threw on the Sharknado shirt. It hung longer on her than it had on Jackie, but where it was loose on Jackie, it was a snugger fit for the new Zadie.

Her neighbor lit another cigarette.

She asked him, “You’re the guy who banged on the wall, aren’t you?”

“Guilty as charged,” he replied. “Listen, if you want to use my room to change or to organize your stuff, go right ahead. I can stay out here if it would make you feel safer.”

“Uh, that’s okay, thanks,” she replied, “but do you have a knife or small scissors I could use? I need to cut off some price tags.”

He pulled a swiss-army knife from his pocket and handed it to her. A few minutes later she was putting on her underwear beneath the Sharknado shirt. Then, after a deep breath and a quick look around, she pulled off the shirt and slipped on a bodycon dress that seemed like a good idea in the store -- when she thought that Jackie would be wearing it. It was black, sleeveless, and came down to her mid-thigh. A red stripe ran from her left shoulder and came to a point at her right hip.

“That’s some dress,” the neighbor commented. “After all that, I feel like I owe you dinner.”

Zadie chucked mirthlessly.

“What about breakfast?” he ventured, gesturing to the coffee shop across the street.

“No, thanks,” she replied, “but do you have another cigarette?”

She took the Silverado and drove it around the block, out of sight of the motel. Then she walked to the coffee shop, feeling with every step the sway of her new body parts. She realized, to her great embarrassment, that she hadn’t considered the feelings of the woman who’d have to wear these clothes. She hadn’t considered that at all, and from that realization she began to understand what an ass she’d been (as Grady) to all the women she knew. After the business with Jack was completed, she’d have to get some more normal, less revealing, clothes. Yeah, just like Jack, she realized, with a wry smile. The very first thing is clothes. She threw away most of the clothes Jack had thrown at her, but she did keep the red panties from the Santa’s Helper outfit. They were so red and shiny and soft, they nearly seemed magical.

At the coffee shop, she sat at a table a bit back from the window. From there she had a good view of Jack’s door, but wouldn’t be too visible to people outside. There was also a side door, so she could duck out unseen if Jack decided to come have breakfast himself. If Jack had any brains, though, he’d stay inside for the next twelve hours until he could change back. At that point, after an entire day in that little room, he’d probably be desperate to get out, and that could give Zadie the chance to sneak in and steal the medallion.

On the other hand, Jack had shown himself to be very impatient, and he might not have the same visceral sense of danger that the real Grady would feel about a possible arrest warrant. Jack was far less likely to sit and wait, and far more likely to pop out of that door and go somewhere.

Zadie ate her way slowly through a full breakfast, and was nursing her third cup of coffee, when Tom Schurheid walked in. His eyes lit up when he spotted Zadie. Grady remembered him from school, although he never knew Tom well. He was in Zadie’s class, three years behind Grady.

“Zadie Gammisen, as I live and breathe!”

“Hi there, Tom.”

“Wow, you’re looking good! You really… filled out… in a nice way.”

“Err… thanks. You look good, too.”

“Mind if I sit?” Tom sat and ordered breakfast. “Oh, my God, that is one hell of a dress. You must have picked it up in in one of the big cities you’ve seen! I’m really surprised to see you back here! You never came to town much anyway, but a while back I heard that you’d gone East.”

“Oh, yeah,” Zadie agreed. “Yeah, I did do that.”

“How far did you get? Did you see Chicago? Did you like all those big cities?”

“Naw, I missed being home,” Zadie lied. “I’m not a city girl. Martaglio is big enough for me.” As Grady, she’d never traveled far from home. The only “big cities” he’d ever seen were Sacramento and San Francisco.

“Well, great, great!” Tom enthused. “It’s good that you’re back! How’s Buddy doing? I bet he missed you bad.”

Zadie was caught unprepared by the question. After a moment she replied, “Yes, yes, I’m sure he did. But, listen, I haven’t seen him yet, so please don’t tell him that you saw me. He’ll feel bad if he hears that someone else saw me first, that I didn’t go straight home when I got here.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tom agreed. “Hey, is Buddy any better? Or is he still-- uh--” he wasn’t sure what words to use to describe Buddy’s condition. Challenged? Slow? Child-like?

“He’s the same,” she replied in a low voice, looking at the ground as she spoke.

Tom fell silent, kicking himself for forgetting that Buddy was a sensitive topic. Zadie had spent most of her life taking care of her brother, and consequently didn’t have much of a social life or a dating life at all. Tom couldn’t blame her if she wanted to get away from here. Hell, she probably went East to escape from Buddy. But now she’d come back...

“Are you going to stick around?” he asked her.

“At this coffee shop, you mean?”

“No,” he said with a laugh. “Here in Martaglio.”

She leaned back, considering her options once again. She could leave; actually and truly go East, driving the Silverado and ditching it somewhere along the way. If she did that, she’d be leaving Buddy to his own devices. But then again, he’d been on his own since the day she died.

As she had that thought, she pictured Buddy, wild-eyed, crying, shouting, “You got no right! You got no right!”

On the other hand, if she stayed, all her money and time would sink into taking care of Buddy. And Buddy would probably live to a ripe old age. “That little bastard’s going to outlive us all,” Buddy’s father used to say.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Zadie told Tom, “But I’m inclined to leave town tonight.”

Tom couldn’t hide his disappointment, but he tried. “I’m sorry to hear that. I, uh-- oh well…” His voice trailed off. Then, casting about for something else to talk about, asked her, “Hey, uh, speaking of old flames, did you hear about Grady?”

“About the murders and going to jail, you mean?” she asked.

“Yeah. I heard he got out.”

“Right,” Zadie ventured, uncertain whether her lie would fly, but sensing that she’d better cover her bases, “I, um, stopped in here because I’m pretty sure I saw him go into that motel over there.”

“Really?” Tom asked, with a glance over his shoulder. “And what were you doing in this part of town?”

“I was thinking about getting a room at the only motel in town,” she said, “but then I saw the place and changed my mind.”

Tom laughed. “Yeah, that’ll do it.” He glanced over his shoulder at Jack’s door and gave Zadie a funny look. “You’re on a stakeout, aren’t you? You’re waiting for him to come out.”

“Yes,” she admitted, “but it’s not what you think.”

“And what do I think?” he asked.

She didn’t answer his question. She simply told him, “He’s got something of mine. A necklace. I want it back, if I can get it without a fight.”

She saw a series of questions stack up inside his head, but he didn’t ask any of them.

They talked some more. They asked for more coffee, but didn’t drink it. At long last, the waitress very pointedly set their check on the table, telling them, “My shift’s ending, so I need to cash that out.”

Tom’s car was parked outside under a shady tree. It was pointing in the right direction, so they sat inside it, watching Jack’s door.

After a while Tom asked, “Why don’t you go on up there, knock on his door, and tell him that you want that necklace back?”

Zadie squirmed. “Because we’re not exactly on speaking terms.”

“So how do you plan on getting--- oh!” he exclaimed, the light suddenly dawning. “You’re waiting for him to leave so you can steal it! Aren’t you!”

She looked at him in silence, trying to keep a poker face. He looked right back at her with a twinkle in his eye. Then they both burst out laughing.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m in. I never liked that guy anyway.”

“Really?” she asked in surprise.

“No, just kidding. I like him just fine. But I like you better.”

However, after an hour, Tom began to feel seriously bored, and was just about to offer to go for food -- or something, anything -- when the Jack’s door opened, and Grady emerged, holding the necklace case in his left hand.

“There he goes!” Tom said. “Once he’s out of sight, we go in, right?”

“No,” Zadie said. “See that case he’s carrying? That’s it. That’s it. That’s got the necklace in it.”

Tom blanched. “Okay, Zadie. I’d like to help you, but I can’t take it out of that guy’s hands. He’s built like a quarterback and I… well, I’m not.”

“Don’t worry,” Zadie assured him. “I hate to lose it, but I don’t want a fight. Maybe I can find a peaceful way tomorrow or the day after.”

“So does that mean you’re sticking around? At least a little bit?”

Zadie sighed. She continued tracking Grady as he crossed the parking lot. She figured he was heading for the theater. “I’ll need to do some shopping and find a place to stay,” she said.

“I can help with both those things,” he told her, in a bright tone.

“I’m sure you can,” she said, in a dry tone.

“I’m not suggesting anything! No strings,” he began to say, then suddenly, “Oh, crap!”

A kid on a skateboard, a kid wearing a backward baseball cap and a pair of dark glasses, shot out of nowhere. He crossed the parking lot and zoomed past Grady. As he passed, the skater bent his knees to crouch down low, and snatched the necklace case right out of Grady’s grasp. Then he executed a hard U-turn, throwing sparks, and rolled back in the same direction he’d came from, exiting the parking lot, and sailed down a hill and away.

Grady swore loudly and shouted insults and demands at the fleeing thief. He didn’t run after him; he knew he’d never catch the kid. So he pulled out his phone.

“Oh my God, what the hell is he doing?” Zadie exclaimed.

“Probably calling the cops,” Tom ventured.

Not very smart, if they’re looking for you, Zadie said to herself.

Minutes later, as Tom and Zadie watched, the police rolled up, talked to briefly to Grady as he mimed the robbery. Then the cops spun him around, cuffed him, and stuffed him into the back of their squad car.

I warned him! Zadie silently exclaimed. I warned him repeatedly!

“Well, there goes your necklace, Zadie. You know, if you want, we can go right now and report it stolen. Then you might have a chance of getting it back. A chance is better than nothing.”

“No,” she replied, “it’s gone. It’s been a world of trouble, anyhow, so let’s let it go.”

Tom looked confused. He scratched his head. “You waited all this time, staking out his room, and now you’re just going to let it go?”

“It’s complicated,” she told him. “Better to just let it go.”

Tom was silent for a few moments. Then he asked her, “What now, Zadie? Are you still leaving town?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Right now, all I know is that I’m worn out from this crazy day. I really need to stop and think for a bit, and consider my options.”

“Okay,” he said, “Options are good. In fact, let me give you another one. You know my mother. Do you remember the house I grew up in? Well, now that we’re all up and grown, she’s been watching all these home-improvement shows, and she decided to turn her basement into a rental unit. A mother-in-law apartment. It’s pretty nice -- it’s a daylight basement, with its own entrance and everything, so you’d have privacy. And you know my mother -- she’s not nosy. She’ll leave you to yourself. It’s quiet and clean, and everything is brand new. It’s even furnished! She’s just about to advertise for a renter, but you could live there! You and Buddy!”

“Buddy,” Zadie said, looking down. “I don’t know.”

“I mean, if you want him living with you. But I have to tell you: I always thought that living up in the hills made everything harder for you. If you lived in town, you could get help taking care of Buddy. My mother works for social services, you know. And it would be easier for you to have a job.” After a pause he added, “And a life.”

Zadie heaved a heavy sigh. It was true. Zadie never did have much of a life. Neither had Buddy, honestly.

Zadie considered her options. “When can I see the place?”

“Now,” he replied. “If you want. And, uh, I can help with the rent, if you need it.”

She smiled. “Thanks, Tom. That’s very sweet of you, but I can handle it.”

Later that day, just a little before sundown, Tom gave Zadie a ride up to Buddy’s shack. He was home, alone, and she could hear him crying as she walked up to the door. She took a deep breath and braced herself. She knew Buddy was “simple” but she wasn’t sure how he’d take seeing Zadie alive again. Zadie hadn’t known until that moment how much Buddy understood about life and death and the things that went on around him. She was about to find out.

When he saw her, his mouth fell open.

“Zadie! Zadie! Are you back? I thought that you were dead! Me and Grady--”

“I know, I know,” she told him. “I was hurt, but now I’m better.”

“I knew it! I knew it! I told Grady!” Zadie knew full well that Buddy had done no such thing, but of course she let it go.

“Yes, Buddy, I’m home,” she said, and pulled him into a hug. His arms hung limp at his sides at first, but then he hugged her and squeezed her almost painfully tight. Neither bothered to fight back their tears.

“Never leave me, Zadie! I’ve been so alone!”

“I’m not going to leave you, Buddy, never.”

Then she felt Buddy’s fingers explore her tiny waist, and his tears stopped. He pulled back from her, and after looking deeply into her eyes, he took in her new figure: the abundant breasts, the generous hips. He stared at her, big-eyed, mouth open, and asked, in a voice like a child, “Have you had work done?”

She burst into laughter. “Oh, yes, baby. Lots of work done! Inside and out!”

Buddy grinned. “I thought so! I got an eye for these things! I can tell! You look good!”

“Thanks, Buddy. Listen, let’s get a few of your things together. I want to show you a nice place in town where we can live.”

“Okay,” he agreed, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.